I attended a wedding reception this evening for two lovely and wonderful people who really love each other and are adorable and I wish them all the best because of all of the above. They really have nothing to do with this post other than their wedding reception was the setting for the subsequent stuff that sucks massively. So, I sat at a table with several friends, most of whom are single. One poor gentleman happens to be over 25 so everyone is on RED ALERT to get him married ASAP because obviously his singleton status is untenable to people only tangentially involved in his life. Pretty much every single person who stopped at our table to chat brought up the fact that a) he wasn't married and b) he needed to get on that STAT. Because apparently he wasn't aware of that fact already. It drives me insane when people cannot mind their own business and let people live their own lives. It finally annoyed me so that I politely (and loudly) thanked him for taking all the crap I usually get at weddings. It didn't help with the annoying people passing our table, but it did shut a few of the people up who were sitting at our table. Which was something.
Besides the fact that it is just rude to be so intrusive into an individual's personal life, is there any other situation in which people say such obnoxious things? I know people ask recently and not-so-recently married folks when they are planning to have children or if they are trying to have children (which is awful in and of itself) but the behavior I witnessed tonight was akin to people accosting a couple who are unable to have children and telling them that they needed to get themselves a child right away and implying that they should just walk down the street and pick-up the first one they see. THIS IS NOT OKAY! It isn't appropriate to say to a childless couple and it isn't okay to say to a single person. How have we become a society or culture that allows such intrusive, rude, and hurtful behavior? Why are extremely personal aspects of individual lives the fodder of public speculation and even mockery. And why, oh why, is it considered rude for said individual to do anything but sit there and take it or joke about it themselves? HAVE WE NO DECENCY?
