So, do you plan to get married?

It's amazing in the way how even writing out a few disjointed thoughts can organize the mind when it comes to communicating an idea to others. In my last post, I threw out a bunch of thoughts that had been weighing upon my mind, largely as an excuse for a post. It turned out that in doing so, it gave me something new to talk about and an interesting situation I find myself in.

At the job where I work as an engineer, we occasionally have to set up a series of test equipment for verifying the real world results of some product we are working on. I was working with another person who is, in effect, my mentor as I learn more about what it is that I am doing for the place I work at.

As things often do with work that doesn't require much thought, we ended talking, talking about ourselves. Rather, I asked questions about the setup, and the engineer asked questions about me. At first, he asked about my schooling, what I had learned there and what I wanted to learn about in the future. Then we moved on to hobbies, and eventually to relationships.

It turns out that the engineer was also an alumnus of my alma mater, and he complained about the same professors that I had issues with, which gave us quite a bit of common ground for discussion. I learned that he was married and had a boy and a girl. Then he asked that question. "So, are you married?"

Now, I'm not exactly oversensitive about my social status, but I sometimes wonder why this question is asked. It's a simple yes or no question. Somehow, I found myself apologetically explaining that I am single and that I am not seeing anyone right now. I even added the part about not really being interested in entering a relationship right now and my wish to do activities that didn't require a relationship to participate in.

Yet, the question is inevitably followed by this one when answered in the negative: "Do you think you'll ever get married?" With a question like that, I tend to get grumpy immediately. Since I had just taken the trouble to clarify that I am single and not seeing somebody, where would such thoughts of getting married follow that explanation? Instead of saying what I thought about the question, I heard these words blurt forth from my mouth: "No, I don't intend to get married."

Did I just say that out loud?!? I sure did! I paused for a moment, but that seemed to satisfy my colleague, since he stayed silent for the rest of the setup. In those moments of relative silence, I wondered to myself.

Was that response I had just replied with a Freudian slip? Some unconscious reason for why I just don't feel like finding someone special in my life? Do I really desire not to be married? I was troubled by the thoughts that continued to rattle around in my mind.

Is my explanation that I am tired of the chase really a superficial symptom of something deeper in my psyche? Was the real reason for the failed relationships I have had recently that they were undone by my own unconscious attitude towards being wedded to another person? Eventually, I had to push these thoughts out of my mind as I focused on the task at hand.

Usually, once these thoughts get supplanted by other thoughts, they escape from my memory unless something sparks the thought again. However, as I drove home, this particular conversation and the thoughts it set off came back to me of their own volition. During the entire forty five minute drive home during rush hour filled traffic (further extended by a car accident), I thought about it. I worried at the concept to see if some real feeling lay behind those words.

I came to a conclusion that I really didn't know if I meant what I had said. I couldn't say whether I had really meant it or responded that way out of pique from being asked the question one too many times. I can be contrary at times, and this may have been one of those times. Some doubts still linger though.