the wedding cohort

Back in high school, and even in university, friends would always joke about how one day we would all get married. In the back of my mind, there has always been the idea that as you grow up, at some point all your friends get married in roughly the same time period, lasting a couple of years. (Followed a little later by everyone having babies, all in the same general time period).

For myself, I really never imagined that I'd be part of the wedding crowd. Historically, I have not been the boyfriend kind. Really, before Bunny, previous relationships that I have been in have veered more towards the friends who spend a lot of time in the sack together instead of a more emotionally mature relationship. Sure, there were people I slept with. Sure, there were people with whom I had emotional entanglements. Very rarely were these the same people.

In fact, probably the most serious, longest lasting "relationship" I had before Bunny was with a very good friend who was at the begining in an open relationship with someone else. Even when he and she eventually broke up, and we were still sleeping together, Moosebutt (that's a nickname of his) and I would lay in bed after getting it on and we would talk about this girl he wanted to ask out, or my crush on the Bear-Man (what was I thinking?).

So I never expected to be part of the mad rush to weddings. I expected to be a bridesmaid about a million times in my twenties, but I did not expect that I would be getting married here, at this point in my life. I figured I'd be the kooky, crazy professor, who wouldn't bother to settle down until my thirties or forties. I imagined I would be city- and province-hopping as I moved from undergrad to masters to doctorate to fellowship to being a professor. It's not I life I imagined would allow me the opportunity to settle in with someone so early. (Deliberate wording there - I am setting in, not settling down. I'm not giving anything up - I want to be here.)

Here I am, somehow. Getting married. Two of my best friends also in the process of getting married. I am getting married. I have plenty of other friends who are engaged, or newlyweds or starting to talk about getting married. So here I am, part of the wedding cohort.

It's crazyface, because I don't feel like we are old enough for this. I don't feel like I am old enough that it would possibly be the done thing in my group to get married. It doesn't seem crazy that I am getting married, or that any of them individually is getting married ... but have we really reached this point in life where we are all, as a group, getting married?

Knowing that so many of my friends are doing the same thing is what makes me feel a little off-balance.

I feel a little bit like, really? We were just coming home at six am after mad parties not too long ago. It wasn't so long ago that I was skipping rope with some of these girls in recess. Now we are getting married (to other people)? What the?