My Friend Asks Me, "Should I Marry My Fiance?"

This article is for the guys. I feel that women are more mature than men at the same age. The adage that "behind every great man, there is an even greater woman" may allude to this. I don't know any great man who wasn't in a relationship. I have had two friends of mine ask me this very question or some derivative of it. I don't know why they said it. Alcohol was involved. Come to think of it; they were both drunk when they asked me. Then again, alcohol has been known to act as a truth serum. Another adage comes to mind, "In wine, there is truth." Truth be told, how do you answer this question,"Should I Marry My Fiance?".

This is the question my fraternity brother asked me one night. We went out to the local college bar to have a beer. It eventually becomes four or five by the end of the night. Here we are in the center of the college bar, sitting at the high-top table. We start talking about the latest scandals in our fraternity, and then the question comes out of the left field. Joe looks up at me and asks, "Hey, Tom do you think I should marry Shelly?" Joe leans closer and asks me the same question, but a little differently, "Should I marry her; what do you think?"

What do you say to your friend? You are damned if you tell the truth; you are incarcerated for life if the fiance finds out what you said. You smile, look at him, and blurt out, "Hold on, while I grab another beer; this one is warm as p*ss. Are you good, or do you want another?"

The question sets you up for a no-win situation. Imagine, during a divorce arbitration, the ex-wife's divorce attorney asks the husband, "Did you beat your wife recently?" If he answers yes or no to the question, it is structured for the guy to admit that he is a wife-beater implicitly. You can't win.

Inside my little head, I'm thinking, "If you have to ask, then NO!!!!" But, this is a question that only the groom-to-be can answer. But in asking the question, the groom-to-be has answered, "NO!!!!!". So Joe shouldn't marry her. I wouldn't say I liked Shelly; I only tolerated her. Joe could do better. She wasn't very nice at times. But, from what Joe has told me, she was very eager with Joe; and frequently enthusiastic. I'll leave it at that.

If a man proposes, there is no shadow of a doubt about it in my universe. The woman he proposes is the one and only, his soulmate, the one person that makes you complete. Only you know who is right for you, no one else. Because only you know yourself. Others may say they know you, but they don't. Only you know who you are, through and through, to the bottom of your core. I'm sorry for the wordiness. I promise I ran out of cliches. Now the hard part, how do I answer Joe.

Photo by Nikola Jovanovic on Unsplash

You sit down at the chest-high bar table. You look into his lost and pathetic eager eyes. Do I tell the truth? Do I shake him up to face reality? I start drinking my beer and try to think of something else to say, something off-topic and playfully witty. I can't; I'm too chicken—another swig of my adult beverage. I scan around to see if there are any bombshells in the bar. I can waste about five minutes talking about how I want to walk up to a beautiful bombshell beauty, what I would say to strike up a conversation and hopefully connect. You guess it. Nothing but beer-guzzling men catching the hockey game on a Wednesday night surrounded us. I take another swig from my beer and smile. Joe is looking at me and wants to hear my answer. I mutter to myself and say, "oh boy."

No Win Scenario #1.

I tell him the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the Gosh-damn truth. I know where it will eventually lead me. A door being slammed into my face. I'll be greeted with a cold shoulder by my best friend, Joe, for the rest of my life. Meek men ask these types of questions from their friends. They can't confront. And he would no sooner turn me over to a pack of rabid dogs to save his pathetic little ass. I know he will spill the beans and confess what I said in the heat of the moment. He will conveniently leave out the part where he asks me, "Should I marry my fiance?" Once Shelly finds out what I said, she will not speak to me. I can live with that. The part I can't live without is my drinking buddy. Shelly will forbid Joe to hang around, let alone talk to me. She will hold the bedroom as a hostage if Joe doesn't comply. God love him, that spineless bastard.

No Win Scenario #2

I don't tell him the truth. I smile at him and tell him, "Hey, you love her, don't yah. C'mon man; you know you do." I raise my Craft brew of the month up high, and we clank our beer bottles for a toast and down our thirst. I remark to myself that this scenario was a lot easier to execute, especially with the assistance of alcohol. I smile; he smiles. I raise my hands and say to him, "Hey, let's celebrate by you buying the next round. Yeah!" I raise my right palm and give him a high five as if he had accomplished something fantastic. He got up from his chair and was eager to whip out that wallet to pay for the next round.

Shocking epiphany, this is beginning to sound like a game theory lecture like the one in my economic business classes. I have to remember that craft brew I drank. It may help me study for the final.

Joe will marry his fiance, Shelly. What I say doesn't matter. He will be miserable or divorced, or both. But I will still have my drinking buddy.

As they say on Jeopardy, "I'll take 'No Win Scenario #2' for $1000." How can I lose?