Marriage Material

Did you know that all you have to do to be validated by the entire world is to get engaged?

I never knew how badly I wanted to get married until I changed my Facebook status to engaged. Did you know that all you have to do to be validated by the entire world is to get engaged? Suddenly people think you’re worthwhile because you’re marriage material.

People have been writing the nicest comments. “He’s a lucky guy! You’re so smart and cool.”

One guy private messaged me to say he’s always wanted to hook-up with me and now wonders if it’s too late!

It’s more attention than I’ve gotten in all of my miserable life. It’s exhilarating and fantastic. There’s only one problem: I’m not engaged. Don’t even have a boyfriend, haven’t had a date in months.

Here’s how it happened. I changed my status to “engaged” one night on a wine whim, thinking it was no big deal or that it would be the equivalent to “in an open relationship” or “swinger.”

The night before, I had changed my status to “single,” which elicited no response whatsoever, nary a thumbs up.

So I change it to engaged, forgot all about it and fall asleep. In the morning, I had 45 comments and 50 thumbs ups: everyone thinks I’m engaged. Now, I don’t know what to do! If I tell them I lied on my status, that makes me a jerk. My friend suggested I create a fake profile for my fake fiancé linking him back to me via Facebook’s handy “engaged to Melinda Hill” feature. Maintaining something like that might qualify a person as insane.

Maybe I could marry one of my exes, they weren’t so bad. Millions of people marry all kinds of hot messes every day. Maybe I could just suck it up like they did in the 50’s before we got all these wacky ideas about deserving happiness. Unexpected death is completely plausible!

“The reason you haven’t met my fiancé is because he recently passed away.” Too morbid.

Suddenly becoming engaged has become an urgent priority.

Everywhere I go people are congratulating me. My close friends know the truth about the situation but with acquaintances, find it’s just easier to tell them what they want to hear than to deal with their disappointment.

“I heard you’re engaged! Who’s the guy? How did he propose?”

“Well, he rented out a silent movie theater and then came on screen as the actor and proposed to me! Then the lights came up and there he was with a beautiful diamond (it’s being cleaned right now; you know how antiques are). And I was like, “What? Yes!”

Then he goes, “I have another surprise for you outside!” and I’m like, “What?” So we walk outside and he has this hot air balloon waiting and we jump in it and drift over the city sipping French wine….” (This little tidbit has the exact sort of over the top wow factor I’ve come to expect from my fake fiancé.)

What I’ve noticed is that when a girl announces her engagement on Facebook, it’s celebrated like the beginning of an era while a guy’s engagement is treated like the end of an era. These are the kinds of congratulatory comments guys give other guys:

“I give it a year.”

“I wash my hands of this.”

“Who’s the ball and chain?”

“Strip club bus tour!”

The way they approach the wedding is so different it’s like they’re planning two different events.

Girls will say things like, “This year’s all about the wedding,” while for guys it seems to be about cramming their penises into as many last minute holes as they can before they have to settle on one person’s hole(s) for the rest of their lives.

All of this has helped me to decide that I want to go ahead and go through with the actual wedding. I’ll let you know who the guy is as soon as I meet him. For now I’m just going to take that first baby step and change my status back to single. I don’t know how people will react. I do know that five out ten fake engagements end up in divorce.