When I graduated college, people were excited for me and expressed it, being supportive and engaged with my choices leading up to and after graduation—even though they couldn’t be invited to graduation itself.
When I accepted a graduate degree offer, people were excited for me. People asked questions and engaged. People made arrangements to see me, asked what I needed, even insisted on helping me pack and move. Even though, quite obviously, no one was coming with me as I moved first south and then east.
Perhaps then, it’s not so surprising that I expected—and yes, I fully admit that this was an expectation of mine—my friends to be excited, expressive, and engaged with my wedding, even though it’s not something that was going to allow (m)any people to attend. After all, people managed that for graduation and for moving, why would a wedding be any different?
Apparently I was wrong. People’s dislike over weddings comes out, or their expectations, or even demands—and yes, I’ve had demands that I “must” invite people even if I know people cannot come, never mind how utterly asinine that is for so many reasons. And you know what?
It fucking sucks.
I had expectations of what my friends would be like. They were expectations and so they were wrong. But it sucks that the most support Nick and I have received, aside from his father and his father’s partner, are from people that I’ve known for about a year. They’re the ones who’ve reached out to see how we’re doing, to check in on stress levels, to see if we need anything, to offer support, and to try to get together when possible.
I admit it. I expected more from people I’ve known going on—or over—a decade. And it’s been such a bad experience that I’ve spent the last two weeks avoiding anything to do about or with our wedding, and at the moment am in favour of scrapping everything in favour of eloping as best we can and taking our chances with immigration down the line.
I’ve debated whether or not to even say anything after the last post I made on Facebook—one commenting on how I didn’t know anybody who bought into the wedding-industrial-complex, and how that was mostly a good thing but I was still a bit sad because no one really seemed all that excited for me or interested in our wedding—blew up in stunningly amazing ways. However, I am, because people did continue the conversation in private (even if I didn’t reply to them). The fall-out from that, and people attempting to engage me on their terms over it, was upsetting enough that I avoided the computer for days. But I am posting it because it seems like I can’t really move on with wedding anything until I get this bad taste out of my mouth, even if it ends up placing it in other people’s, instead.
Well, that and on both LiveJournal and here, I can turn comments off. I’m taking the chance on Facebook, but I’ll remove that post if it gets out of hand.