A friend of mine got engaged to her long-term boyfriend over the weekend.  She told me in a flurry of caps and exclamation points over I.M. and I responded in kind.  I’m happy for her; she’s been wanting this for so long.

While I’m certainly excited for my friend and her partner, again, I feel like I’m missing something.  I’ve never understood why this friend in particular–and several more of my friends–crave a wedding.  Crave “being married”.  I know it goes beyond the official recognition in front of friends, family, law, and whatever greater presence they desire.  I’m sure there are whatever Freudian reasons you want to list, or consumerist blah-blah-blah.  But these are my friends, not random women with dreams of white dresses cruising the Website That Shall Knot Be Named.

Looking back on the past six months, I’ve had so many conversations where people look at me like I’m from Mars when I say I haven’t started planning, or I haven’t done X, Y, or Z, or I don’t want this or that.  I’ve learned to tone down my expressions in person so as not to unintentionally offend people who are getting married or have views different from my own.  But it seems that they all innately “know” what happens.  What they want.  Like they’ve been planning it since they were three.  While people may not be totally familiar with various traditions, just about everyone I know seems to have a better grip on what’s tradition, what’s considered normal, what’s expected.

I regularly exhort my students to know the rules of writing so they can break them intentionally.  I know when I break rules in writing.  But I lack this innate knowledge of veils and showers.  People who have Asperger’s Syndrome and similarly “differently ordered minds” fail to catch subtle social cues, or understand interpersonal relationships, compared to someone who is considered “normal”.  I’m going through a world of weirdness, and I’m wondering why I don’t get it and everyone else seems to know.  I don’t even know what questions to ask, even after reading some and trying to figure out what the fuck is going on.

Was I born without a bridal gene?

(And in the meantime, my mother and grandmother–the people who probably should be guiding me through this in some respects–are simultaneously offended at any idea I have regarding a wedding or engagement for “breaking tradition,” or not caring at all.  It’s like they’re not even happy for me–which I should have expected.  We don’t show happiness for others in my family.  We just cheer on each others’ misfortunes.)