The Comet's Flame

Well, it has been nearly a year since I wrote the previous installment of my treatise on marriage. I’ve been thinking that two is not a good number (when it comes to installments, that is), so I am undertaking an attempt at a final chapter in what can now be termed a trilogy.

It seems that most of my friends and relatives, even people younger than I, are pairing off with members of the opposite sex and getting married. I, as you may have noticed, am not. At first, I dismissed my deviation from the norm as a byproduct of my own idealistic selectiveness (what can be more romantic than to tragically sigh, “I am surrounded by women who are beneath me”). But now, I am starting to feel a bit unsettled by the fact that, in the course of the past twenty-some years, not a single female has showed even the slightest bit of interest in me. Now I’m starting to notice the handwriting on the wall. The writing that says, in giant, bold, underlined block letters, “You, sir, are hopeless.”

So I think I have two choices.  I could lower my expectations, and go find some girl who’s stupid enough to overlook my apparent fundamental unattractiveness.  Or, I can say “forget this” and pledge my time and affection to some heartless Siren like Science.

When I try to imagine the grown-up Jed, or even the elderly Jed, try as I might, I cannot visualize myself bouncing kids on my knee, or pleasantly conversing with neighbors over a white picket fence.  I can, however, easily visualize myself as a stooped old eccentric, toiling over calculations in a stuffy lab.  So, I think that option Two is the obvious choice in the above list.  I guess what I’m trying to say here is that I just want to do something reasonably productive with my life, and stop wasting time pursuing idealistic pipe dreams that are totally incompatible with who I am.

There, I think that I’ve done an acceptable job of shrugging off the shroud of romanticism that encompassed my previous posts on this topic!  Readers take note… I do not wish to read comments such as, “Oh Jed, you are a special young man, and someday some young lady will realize that.”  This is a strictly no-fairy-tale zone.  Also, I don’t want anything to stand in the way of my feeling sorry for myself.