If I want to do a number on my sense of happiness and trash what contentedness lies inside my inner sanctuary of single life, one perusal of the “Weddings / Celebrations” page of the New York Times Sunday edition is all it takes.
There it is.
Captured in smiling snapshots- portraits of pure bliss with perfect teeth. Love told in three or four tidy paragraphs, each one detailing the perfection of the fortunate couple’s life, their union, and the inevitable anticipation of ever after.
“He” is an up and coming executive in an industry where affluence is a by-product of senior management. He has one of those clever three letter titles that doubles for one’s level of worthiness- CEO, CPA, DDS. The groom-to-be’s proud Papa moved on to a late career as a professor at a well respected university. Maybe his alma mater. Commonly father and son attended the same ivy-league school and graduated with a cum laude something tattooed to their esteem.
“She” studied at the same college as her betrothed (or at a nearby women’s college and merely attended the ivy school’s football games to see her best friend, the head cheerleader). She works as a preschool teacher, or she is a sociologist, and she undoubtedly recently inked a highly acclaimed children’s book. Her father is a minister.