May 12, 2005
Scary Marriage Is
Jill Brooks, INtake columnist

Costly. Foolish. Needed more cash and a faster car.

These are a few things that come to mind when I think about Jennifer Wilbanks, the now infamous runaway bride from Georgia. A small part of me questions her ignoramus thought patterns, while the softer side of me understands. After all, I vote “marriage” as one of the most petrifying roller coasters on earth!

Besides a couple of beguiling losers, I’ve dated several wonderful men; but I have never been married, nor have I ever been engaged. Not even close.

A couple of boyfriends once began the “marriage talk.” I’d feel my skin begin to itch and melt, and say something like, “ I need to run out for cigarettes (I don’t smoke) … be right back.”

So I’d fake a trip to 7-11 and never return. Like Ms. Wilbanks, it was the running part that felt so good.

One should always blame parents in such situations, and this is my mother’s fault. She constantly told my sister and me, “Be independent – you don’t need a man.” Like a bad face, it stuck. Of course, now she retracts the statement, explaining, “I didn’t mean forever…”

I recently had lunch with a happily married friend. Telling him that carting kids to soccer practice and cooking Hamburger Helper didn’t sound all that fun to me, he just sighed and told me I’m missing the point.

I questioned, “Don’t you sometimes miss that feeling?”

“What feeling,” he asked.

“The feeling…of being all alone. I love that feeling.”

“You’re very weird,” he replied.

When women are terrified of marriage (I’ll limit this to me and my single girlfriends), they tend to favor unattainable prospects (i.e. boyfriend living in New York City).
These men rarely talk “marriage,” so your fake trips out for a Hostess Snowball or a gallon of milk are far less frequent.

Indianapolis is definitely a buyer’s market for good men. But when I think about being married, living in a house with three garage spaces somewhere on the northside – even missing a single concert – my heart races; my fingers sweat; my identity fades to black. With compromise I dream, “I wonder if I could keep my apartment downtown for a retreat.”

Cliché for single women, my best friend in Los Angeles is a cat owner/operator. She jokes how I’ll find her one day wearing a tuna can for a shoe while she’s feeding the strays of Venice Beach.

That thought might be more terrifying than marriage.

Thankfully, I’m allergic to cats.