Profoundness: on marriage

As a post-married person, I wonder if a lot of gay couples' desire to be married is a simple -- though understandably strong -- desire to have what they're told they can't have.

Saying "Been there, done that" is more dismissive than I mean to be to people who love each other and want to share their lives together. But honestly. Been there, done that.

Of course, it's perfectly natural to want what you can't get, if only for the sole reason that you can't have it. If my hair didn't have this coarse, Mediterranean texture, I wouldn't have so much grief taking care of it. When we were growing up, my sister wanted my bedroom. Then we switched, and I mentioned how I liked my new room better. Guess what that made her want to do? If my friend L. weren't gay, she could have married the partner with whom she shared both a condo and a spectacularly dysfunctional relationship, and just think how much easier that break-up would have been! In short, the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence.

Hell, it's happening to me, too. At school I'm surrounded by people in their mid-20s who are getting married, left and right. I catch myself on a nearly daily basis, especially on the nearly daily basis when I don't have a date that night, selectively forgetting what it was that made me pour a generous shot of whisky for myself one night, set the soon-to-be-ex-husband down, and say to him, "Dude, this just ain't workin'."

Absolutely, gay people should be allowed to get married and have access to the full complement of rights that non-gay people may obtain merely because they may get married. I'm just failing to understand exactly why they want it.