Tiny Love Stories: ‘Why Aren’t You Married?’
From her bedroom window, a young woman named Beth watches the man she loves as he works on the farm. He lives not far from her, and she follows him into the fields each day to help him repair tractor parts.
On weekends, when he is home from the farm on time, they go out on the local boat and have fun. She often comes back with a new boyfriend, but he seems dull and uninteresting.
She has seen him in his blue baseball cap and sunglasses. He never wears a watch. He seems to be in a hurry and keeps stopping to listen to music on his headphones. If he’s listening to popular music, he isn’t playing it with enthusiasm. When he is listening to the kind of music she likes, he looks like he is in pain.
One day, her best friend asks her what’s going on with her boyfriend. How could she be so unromantic? I guess I’m just not good at reading men, she reasons. Then she remembers something she read last week in a book that she liked. Apparently, there’s a saying, ‘A girl should always have a last-place boyfriend.’
In the book, the author tells a woman that she shouldn’t marry the man of her dreams, because he won’t change. No, he’s an idiot, just like the guy she used to live with. She also explains that the saying is also true about an ‘ideal husband.’ You can’t find more of him anywhere.
This has been on my mind since last week. Every time I see the man in blue, I wonder, ‘Why isn’t he your ideal husband?’ I don’t know why I have to say this, but I want to.
I haven’t really ever questioned what marriage to Beth would be like. I’ve just assumed she would be my ideal wife and she would be perfect in every way. But now I worry about her and how I’m going to support her and our relationship.
I’m trying to think of a way to explain how marriage and what it means to me have changed, and I have no answer.