My friends

are getting married this weekend.

You know

you're getting old when that happens. Unless, of course,

you live in some weirdo country that allows children to

wed, like Zambezia or Alabama.

I am very

happy for my friends. If anybody can beat the terrible

odds of having a successful marriage, it is them. They

are the type of couple that just works perfectly

together. Their foibles complement each other's foibles

and are never too annoying or tiresome. Their

relationship is what I aspire to in my current

relationship.

Interestingly

enough, my friends had always claimed that they would

never get married. They said they would be content just

to live together like Susan Sarandon and Tim Robbins:

"The Next Generation." It's funny how things

change.

And now,

the pressure is on me. It seems that all the talk this

year is about marriage. In addition to my friends'

upcoming wedding, two of my cousins are also getting

married this year and my girlfriend has been invited to

12 weddings. My mom seems to have this sly smile whenever

the topic comes up.

I'm not

afraid of marriage or commitment and I fully believe that

someday, perhaps even soon, I will enter the sanctity of

marriage. I just hate weddings.

Before all

of you readers hop on your computer to send me angry

e-mail, let me explain. I have only been to three

weddings and one of those was for a person I did not even

know. That is my first problem with weddings - they

are filled with people that hardly anybody knows. If

you're not a blood relative or a very close friend, then

you're just there to give an extra gift. Of course you

get fed and entertained for several hours for giving that

gift, so it balances out.

Also, half

the people there don't want to be there and we all know

which half that is, right? Men. Weddings always seem to

take place on the weekends and people can always find

some way that they would rather spend the weekend than

doing the hokey-pokey or the chicken dance.

My second

major problem with weddings involves the enormous cost.

An entire industry is based on the wedding, including

clothes, food, entertainment, photographs, space, the

cake, the preacher. The money that is spent on the

wedding could be used as a down payment for a house or

car. Instead it is used to impress people that you may

never see again.

I have

heard hundreds of horror stories about weddings recently,

including a bride who made her bridesmaids pay close to

$500 for their outfits. The girls that were talking about

it mentioned that several bridesmaids were planning on

exacting their revenge for the cost when they got

married.

Revenge?

Since when was that part of the sacred vows?

Marriage,

to me, is about making a commitment to a person. That

commitment is made out of love and should be shared only

with those who truly love the couple. Close relatives and

close friends should be there to welcome the couple to

the next stage of their life. People should not be

invited to a wedding just because you don't want them to

feel slighted.

Now that my

complaining is out of the way, let me use this space to

wish my friends Pat and Danielle ultimate happiness. No

couple deserves it more. I will also use this space to

answer my mother's impending question... "When we're

good and ready."

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