Fairytale of New York
I never ever wanted to get married.
Me and Mehul, my boyfriend of three and a half years, are going to New York for a pre/post-lockdown mini-break for Christmas markets and festive cheer. I ring my Mam. We talk about what clothes I am packing and when I tell her I’m only bringing warm woollies, she says in a panicked voice “Make sure you bring a nice dress; you might need something for a special night out.”
My stomach lurches.
My fear of marriage stems from Little Women, as do most of my views on anything. Jo March is a vibrant, creative, independent hero who bucks convention and argues for a woman’s right to a life as adventurous as any man. Until she gets married. At which point her personality evaporates, she stops writing and opens - OF ALL THE FEMINIST BETRAYALS - a school for BOYS. It’s like a Victorian invasion of the Stepford wives. I decide early on - there will be no Professor Bhaer for me. You will never catch me, I’m the Gingerbread Man.
Mehul suddenly freaks out about me putting my hands in his coat pocket. I do this when it’s cold because they are fleece lined. Suddenly he is getting antsy. I do not like it.
A wedding day is like a wake for yourself that you get to attend, a woman’s closing number before the red curtain drops on her life. A patronising last moment in the sun before the patriarchy descends. Didn't she do well?! THE END. There is only one form of marriage I ever aspired to, eloping at 16 to get married to a bandleader. Unfortunately, Artie Shaw is dead and I’ve left secondary school, so every other option seemed too depressing to even contemplate.
We go to a West Village piano bar where a girl from Orange County and her two gay best friends start a feud with a singing waitress. I try cannabis gummies for the first time and have a panic attack on the subway.
A wedding day, not to be too dramatic here, has all the ingredients of my own personal hell: having to have an earnest conversation with my Dad about our feelings; wearing a stupid white dress; a year spent doing expensive admin for a day most people will begrudge having to go to. Everyone is in boring outfits they’d never wear anywhere else, cosplaying as minor Royals and acting like they’re in an Am Dram production of The Philadelphia Story. Shoot me in the face.
I wake up feeling rough. I have a panicked feeling that something is up. I keep repeating to Mehul, as we head out to breakfast, how hungover I am, like it’s a protection spell.
Iconic unmarried couples: Maya Rudolph and Paul Thomas Anderson; Ryan Gosling and Eva Mendes; Goldie Hawn and Kurt Russell; Susan Sarandon and Tim Robbins before the fall.
We go to a brewery in the afternoon, then he suggests we sit and look over the East River.
Mehul asks me to marry him on a bench overlooking the Manhattan skyline, between the two bridges. He puts a ring he got from his mother on the headphones I’m always losing and says he will always find them for me.
My immediate reaction was, for god sakes, I’m hungover, why are you asking me this now? Should I be euphoric and crying? I feel like I should be crying and happy? Oh great, my personality is already wrong. Do we need to tell people? Oh god, I don’t have to put this up on Facebook, do I? What’s wrong with putting this up on Facebook, am I one of those “not like other girls” women, who prides themselves on their lack of traditional “feminine” qualities? What a great time to discover another layer of internalised misogyny. Then a rush of fear courses through my veins - are we still going to be able to go to the Christmas market?
A very hungover, suddenly engaged person.
I say yes, but mainly I just want to know who he’s told and who's been in on this goddam scam.
We walk across Brooklyn Bridge and for some reason, even though I’ve never read any of her books and only watched a documentary about her, Joan Didion flashes through my mind. She was married and she’s cool. She was sad when her husband died.
My boyfriend - excuse me, FIANCE - points out the Statue of Liberty and I blurt out “She’s free. I’m no longer free, I’ve been caught in a net.”
We get to a Christmas market and I eat a cheese pie.
We meet up with my friend Ifé and go for a drink. I tell her our news and she congratulates us. It feels weird to be congratulated for something that isn’t connected to work. Up until now, every single thing I’ve ever wanted praise for has been for something to do with my career. Now, I’m getting praise for something so easy, finally being able to sustain a loving long-term relationship. It feels incredibly childish.
Despite Mehul’s suggestion we maybe change our plans, I insist we still go watch a play about the effect of slavery on interracial couples in modern day America. We sit through two hours of couples using Antebellum sex games to work through their inherited racial trauma - no intermission.
We head back on the tube to our Airbnb and I get increasingly annoyed/my hangover deepens.
We go to a diner and I say I need to ask him one question: when he asked me to marry him did he forget all the conversations where I said the idea of marriage made me feel car sick or did he think I just didn’t mean it. I say, I need time to think about it.
Very awkward walk home.
Very awkward walk for breakfast. I keep thinking of a stand-up clip I saw where a comic talks about her mother. “She had me when she was 42, I asked why she didn’t do it sooner, she said she was busy. My Dad is 10 years younger and she refuses to marry him.” I remember thinking, her Mam sounds like the coolest person alive. Now I will never be her, for my wings have been clipped. I quote the routine to Mehul and he says that she sounds like a made-up person.
Anyway, good news. I’m no longer hungover.
We meet Ifé in the same brewery we were in the day before. She asks us how the happy couple are and we awkwardly have to explain our engagement is “paused”.
Boyfriend/fiancé/boyfriend disappears to the toilet for a bit so I can chat to Ife. He looks so sad. His big brown eyes look bigger than ever.
I explain my “marriage killed Jo from Little Women” theory. Ifé looks at me like she’s talking to someone with a head injury. It’s not the 19th century, she explains slowly.
She says everything I’ve said so far has been about how other people will view me getting married. She says it sounds like all my arguments are about me proving that I’m different. I have not mentioned my boyfriend once. Do I love him? Do I want to be with anyone else? Do I hate the idea of marriage more than I love Mehul?
I think maybe that on balance, the panic to not be like other people is not a great reason to break the heart of someone I love. Do I really want to risk something so big, over something I’m probably one podcast away from changing my opinion on? I used to hate Mariah Carey. Now I would die for her.
I look at Mehul and any reason why I could ever cause him to be sad, feels petty and ridiculous.
We leave the brewery. The spot where he proposed the day before is two minutes away. I know this is my window to save things.
I clumsily suggest we all walk over to look at the river. All three of us stand side by side, trying to pretend the situation isn’t incredibly weird. Then I abruptly ask Mehul to marry me. Ifé awkwardly takes a few steps back and shuffles off to pretend to look at a rock.
Mehul says yes. He looks equal parts confused, wary and relieved. The ridiculousness of it all, reassures me. I tell him, I love him more than I hate the idea of marriage. I say this like they’re the most romantic arrangement of words in the English language.
I really love my independence. I am worried I am setting a bad example to my niece. “Oh sure, sugar, freedom is great, but in the end you gotta get that ring dollface!” I hate the idea that we have one institution that elevates romantic relationships over the other equally important connections in our lives. Would I love a ceremony where I dedicate my life to my best friends, where our cousins buy us air fryers and we all go on holidays together? Absolutely.
But maybe compromising and trying something new will be an adventure? I love my fiancé and don’t want to be with anyone else, so if he wants a special day, he’ll get his goddamn special day. If nothing else, I’m now thrillingly, one step closer to the childhood dream I never ever gave up on, being a glamorous divorcée with a secret.
Poor Mehul, he deserves better. Sshh, don’t tell him.
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