Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me?

I just finished Mindy Kaling's, "Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? (And Other Concerns)" and I thought it was fabulous. Much better than Tina Fey's "Bossy Pants" if you ask me. I guess I just related better to it, and I thought she wasn't trying so hard to be funny. Really though, I already loved Mindy from The Office and her tweets, but now I am her biggest fan. She is such a real person. I swear we would be best friends in real life.

Anyway, she did this one essay that I loved because it is so true. I have a lot of married friends. In fact, the majority of my friends are married. And yeah it is hard sometimes, but what Mindy says is so good I have to let her say it. Enjoy you guys. And if you haven't read it yet - it is so worth the read.

C'MON, MARRIED PEOPLE:


I don't want to hear about the endless struggles to keep sex exciting, or the work it takes to plan a date night. I want to hear that you guys watch every episode of The Bachelorette together in secret shame, or that one got the other hooked on Breaking Bad and if either watches it without the other, they're dead meat. I want to see you guys high-five each other like teammates on a recreational softball game you both do for fun. I want to hear about it because I know it's possible, and because I want it for myself.


I guess I think happiness can come in a bunch of forms, and maybe a marriage with tons of work makes people feel happy. But part of me still thinks... is it really so hard to make it work? What happened to being pals? I'm not complaining about Romance Being Dead - I've just described a happy marriage as based on talking about plants and a canceled Ray Romano show and drinking milkshakes: not exactly rose petals and gazing into each other's eyes at the top of the Empire State Building or whatever. I'm pretty sure my parents have gazed into each other's eyes maybe once, and that was so my mom could put eyedrops in my dad's eyes. And I'm not saying that marriage should always be easy. But we get so gloomily worked up about it these days. In the Shakesperean comedies, the wedding is the end, and there isn't much indication of what happily ever after will look like day to day. In real life, shouldn't a wedding be an awesome party you throw with your great pal, in the presence of a bunch of your other friends? A great day, for sure, but not the beginning and certainly not the end of a friendship with a person you can't wait to talk about gardening with for the next forty years.


Maybe the point is that any marriage is work, but you may as well pick work that you like. Writing this book is work, but it's fun work, and I picked it and I enjoy doing it with you, Reader. It's my job, and it's a job I like. Tim, (friend who complains about marriage) on the other hand, had chosen a very tough and kind of bad-sounding job, like being the guy who scrapes barnacles off the pylons of an oil rig in the frigid Arctic Sea.


Married people, it's up to you. It's entirely on your shoulders to keep this sinking institution afloat. It's a stately old ship, and a lot of people, like me, want to get on board. Please be psyched and convey that psychedness to us. And always remember: so many, many people are envious of what you have. You're the star at the end of the Shakesperean play, wearing the wreath of flowers in your hair. The rest of us are just the little side characters.