Are weddings only for ....assholes?
I think they really might be.
I've done a lot of thinking on this for the past few years and I really can't get over the idea that the wedding tradition is still with us in the year 2018. In my opinion, it's like many other things left behind from the past: Horrifically toxic, miserable, and ...well, I think it smells a bit like a floating corpse.
Why is this tradition still successfully going onward? I think there is only one big reason: For the most part, weddings come and go very quickly for a lot of us. If you don't have a lot of friends and family, you might only have to go to 3-4 weddings within a 10 year time span, and maybe then never again. So we all just suck it up and we go and we try not to dwell on how ridiculous they really are, at this point.
But that doesn't mean we love weddings. In fact, the more thought I've given to them, the more it has occurred to me that weddings aren't even nearly as popular as some people might think they are. My first piece of evidence? Just take film culture. In America, we love film! Well, how many weddings have really been featured in truly famous and cool movies? The truth is...very few. Basically the only one is The Godfather, as far as I'm concerned, and of course The Godfather is about a bunch of backwards Italians, and it was also set 30 years in the past when it was made. Besides this film, almost all of the movies that deal with weddings, I've noticed, seem to be specifically targeted to younger women. One could perhaps even say that a lot of them seem like downright propaganda to convince girls that marriage should be their only dream. I wouldn't be surprised to find out if most of them were funded by nefarious wedding industry people.
Whats my real problem with weddings tho, beyond the film element, you might ask?
Honestly, its hard to know where to begin. I just think they are horribly lame, I think they're unnecessary, and obviousyl, they're rather foolishly expensive. To put it simply, i don't really understand the point of a wedding. Specifically, i don't understand why everyone insists that they be so big. Like, I'm not necessarily someone who supports the idea of marriage, but I can understand it, at least a little bit. I can especially understand marrying someone for reasons of citizenship in another country. But what I can't fathom is why on Earth everyone you ever knew, and your entire fucking extended family, has to basically be forced to attend, or be labeled an asshole? This part is toxic. Horribly toxic. If you have thrown a wedding, you know a lot of people coming probably don't want to come. Yet you insist they do anyways. WHY?
To me, a wedding should just be like any other gathering anyone has. No one insists on gathering everyone they ever knew together even for fucking Christmas, so why do they have to do it for their wedding? The comedian Doug Stanhope, who hates weddings just like me, says that they're "horribly boring egomaniacal events". He's quite correct. He's especially correct as far as our 21st century is concerned.
For example, once upon a time, I think weddings made a lot more sense. Its very easy to see where the tradition of this gigantic celebration came from. The problem is just that...well, again, it doesn't really fit in with where our culture is at now, and this is made very clear by just how expensive it has become, within the confines of this new landscape. Back in the day, like in the 1600s (an important century to reference for assholes who love old traditions) even the biggest wedding, probably didn't cost shit. Do you want to know why, curious reader??? I'll tell thee! It's because, back then, weddings happened naturally. In the old days, everyone was already living right on top of the other, in cooperative villages, so it was very easy to gather them all for a wedding. It was also very easy to find a "venue", since you had the whole fucking outdoors at your disposal. Ever seen that opening party scene in Lord of the Rings, for example, which is basically set in the Dark Ages? Everyone was just doing it outside, on free land. Everyone in the little village came together naturally in the nature. This is no longer possible. We've been literally banished from our own land. As a result, a gathering of everyone you ever knew or cast your eyes on, costs a lot of fucking money. YOu need to "reserve" a special place.
What I personally find hilarious about the modern wedding is that, the same set of assholes in my family who is obsessed with having wedding after wedding, .....is also the same set of assholes who keep voting to fuck me out of healthcare. Doesn't that strike you as odd? On the one hand, these pricks insist that everyone they ever met keep showing up for their stupid wedding day, and then on the other, they....well, they don't really want a community, it seems, they just want to show off. Because of course, yes of course, showing off is the second thing that has now become the prime goal of any and all weddings. And what I really can't understand myself is ... honestly, who in teh fuck would even want to celebrate their love this way? Are people seriously this fucking unimaginative? The best way for you to celebrate your love is to basically, what, recreate your high school cafeteria?
Think about it. Is that not basically what a wedding is? I remember being at my asshole cousin Jim's wedding and looking around, at the "after party", which of course is the main part of any wedding. It basically just looked like a fancier version of my high school cafeteria, except now it wasn't populated by kids and there were adults of all ages, the food was marginally better, and there was free alcohol. That was all it was, the grand "After party". It was just a bunch of people who somehow knew Jim sitting at dozens and dozens of dinner tables, drinking booze poor Jim had paid for with money he doesn't have, and then eating food he also paid for. Most of them probably didn't really want to be there.
I think there are honestly about 15 people, out of the sometimes hundreds of guests, who ever really want to be at a wedding. The rest of us are looking at our watches (excuse me, cell phones) anxious to get back home...or we are drinking as much free booze as possible.
Well, thanks for the booze, but holy hell, is this really a wise tradition to keep going??? Is this really the only thing these assholes can think up? Seriously, the average cost of a wedding is upwards of 30,000$$$$. Imagine what type of good time you could have with that money, just you and your lover, if you didn't insist on involving everyone else. You could definitely figure out another way to have a good time with that type of money. $30,000 is, after all, a shit load of dollars. Why spend it on a bunch of people who basically just view your wedding day as an annoying obligation? Isn't that kind of depressing?