Tuesday, March 25, 2008

monogamy? marriage!? no thank you, i'll take sanity.

everyday i get to interact with so many people. the variety is exciting and encouraging. the degree of shapes, height, color, shade, and even smile is so wide and inconsistent that i find myself creative similarities. Although i have variety of a optical or anthropological sort there certainly is not a variety in the reaction of married people to a stranger.

my view of the following has to be a result of my age and lack of relationship/significant other/crush, right? perhaps a naiveté i am ignorantly possessing.

so i call a male worker to get some information, because thats what i do as an organizer. At the word hello from my lips it was on. The workers wife answered. His very jealous wife. She refused to let me talk to him unless i told her exactly i was going to say to her husband and before i got to dive into my shpeel, she tells me to fuck off. Trying to not completely fuck this over i tell her thank you and hang up.

I am still flabbergasted at her reaction. My coworker, who has been married for many years, tries to get me to see it from her "perspective", which my senses tell me its fucking ridiculous. as i recanted the stiry to my mother she is shocked that i would expect any other outcome. "thats highly inappropriate Sara. Her husband probably cheats on her". WHAT?! Am i crazy or does anyone else see that as an unacceptable assumption to accept? It is more stable to assume infidelity than it to be acceptable to call a married man? or woman?
And this is by no means the only encounter i have had with such jealousy and distrust. many men will not let my male coworkers, even when they are accompanied by women organizers, to talk to their wives without their supervision or just flat out refuse to let them talk at all.

it sounds like a horrible state of living. suspecting the worst of someone you have willingly (typically) bound yourself to. it sounds absolutely miserable to feel so insecure of your spouse fidelity that when a stranger calls you fly off the handle.

marriage sounds more and more like a miserable emotional cage that produces unsure, fearful and jealous people.
no thank you on that order, i'll pass if thats an inevitability.

1 comment:

Dalbanese said...

I see and hear of examples like this all over Taiwan. It seems it's a world over problem, and the prevalence and strength of reactions like this make it a very real emotion with clear impact on our society. Just seems not much is said about it. I can't really put myself in a position to see or understand that perspective, as your coworker seems to be able to do, but I see people who can and have heard their reasoning, and all I have to say is "agree to disagree."