The Road to Marriage

One of my favorite things about living in the city is not having a car. I mean, except on those days when I'm running errands all over town and I end up looking like a bag lady. Especially if it's raining.

But, for the most part, living without the hassle, the responsibility, is nice. But it's not a reality. At some point I'll have to join the drivers' club; go back to the real world. Going car-less in America isn't really sustainable. Or at least requires a level of stubbornness I don't think I have the patience for.

But the main thing I dread about the future isn't the auto upkeep or maintenance. It's the traffic. Yes, wedging my body between two fat people and a stroller at 8 a.m. on the subway can be terrible, but sitting in gridlock is my purgatory.

Your lack of control over the situation is part of why I hate it. The other is my incredibly short attention span. And the fact that I always have to pee.

I've done the bulk of my lifetime driving in Austin, and as it turns out, the increasingly bad traffic is the city's biggest drawback. So when I lived there, I would always make it a point to figure out the best path to get me wherever I needed to go the fastest because, duh, I'm impatient.

My mind would always race with the same questions: What's my best option? What if the traffic is cause of a wreck? How long will I have to sit here, creeping by a mile per hour? What if they make me to detour and take another route? What will this do to my plans?

Then it dawned on me. A lot of girls act that way about marriage, aka reaching their matrimonial destination. They decide who will be their best option for settling down the soonest. What guy is most likely to commit in the short-term for the long-run. Maybe it's a guy they've invested years with, wherein giving up now would be backtracking (one of my biggest personal pet peeves, something I share with my grandma Dolo).

Or maybe it's a guy you fall head over heels for and he feels the same way. Love at first site and neither of you can wait to make that commitment till death do you part. Like jumpin' in the HOV lane.

But, of course, it's different in the city.

Because we're not drivers.

(Oh and the fact every guy is a Peter Pan and women tend to be as flakey as men when it comes to taking the leap of long-term commitment.)