Married people, you need better PR
Married people, you need better PR
All the wrong lessons I learned about weddings and married life
Writer’s note: This post was first published on Medium’s “Tickled” on May 29, 2021 and will now be permanently housed on Substack’s new “Tickled” column.
I’ll never be anti-marriage. It’s a wonderful thing when it works. My parents will be married 41 years this coming summer. My grandparents were married for 49 years. My brother married his high school sweetheart, and they’ve been together for 22 years. And that’s just a handful of people in my family who are married.
But sometimes I hear some marriage advice that makes me think you guys need a better public relations team. I’ll never forget the day I got into the back of an Uber car with my headphones blasting. I took them off long enough to identify myself and give the driver a head nod. He immediately started talking about his acting career and how he goes on auditions when he finishes his Uber shift. I smiled politely and sighed when he volun-told me to look at his portfolio.
Then completely out of nowhere he said, “Yeah, I had to find a new job after I retired from being a cop. Otherwise I was going to kill my wife.”
Heeeeeelp! Let me out! I don’t want to be an accessory to the Uber driver. And I’m not giving him a five-star review after this oversharing!
But he’s not the only one. I’ve heard more than enough stories of spouses rolling their eyes to the sky about going to parties and concerts together, and neither one of them wanted to be bothered. It’s a sight to behold when you see two people who share the same bed look at each other from across the room like one of them is at the Cool Kids Table and wouldn’t dare be seen waving to the Nerd Table.
And then there was the time I decided to have movie night with my grandfather. Although he used to complain about my TV show and movie choices being “too hip-hop, skip, jump,” I just knew I’d win him over with the 2011 film “Jumping the Broom.” Who wouldn’t want to see a positive, fun film with Mike Epps, Angela Bassett, Paula Patton, Laz Alonso, Megan Good, Gary Dourdan, Loretta Devine and all this other melanin magic? Not my grandfather. He scowled through the whole film.
His summary of the film, “Anybody who spends thousands of dollars on a wedding spends thousands of dollars on a divorce. They need to do like I did. Go to the courthouse and then go to White Castle.”