Isn't it fabulous when your little brother gets engaged......

before you do???!!!...... This is supposed to be a happy time and I am genuinely pleased for my brother, the annoying yet endearing Beavis Blogshaw, and his fiancee. They are both lovely people and they seem to have a good thing going. Good for them! How does this story relate to me? The way he broke the news. So, what should have been a time of celebration and excitement became a time of pressure and insecurity. It went like this:

Beavis: "Hey Carrie, are you sitting down?"
Carrie: "No - I'm at work and we're not encouraged to engage in comforting behaviour..."
Beavis: "Sit down"
Carrie: "What's up?"
Beavis: "Now...... I don't want you to feel any pressure, but your little brother just got engaged!"

Yeah, okay! I wasn't feeling any pressure until I was told NOT TO FEEL ANY PRESSURE..... WTF???!!! I was expecting this news - I had encouraged Beav to pop the question over the holidays and I knew he'd been looking at rings, but I wasn't prepared for the tables to be turned on me. Afterwards, I spoke to my mother. Needless to say, things worsened from there... The convo with our family matriarch, the highly annoying woman who continually beats me with a pressure stick, June Cleaver Blogshaw, went something like this:

June Cleaver Blogshaw: "Did you hear the news? Isn't it exciting?? I have to go put on some lipstick!!!"
Carrie: ???!!!
June Cleaver Blogshaw: "I'm going for lunch with the girls on Friday and I can't wait to tell them the exciting news that Beavis is engaged!!! And then they'll all wonder - what about Carrie???"
Carrie: at this point I was choking back tears and had to end the conversation. I cried all the way to the gym, where I then used my anger to obliterate invisible opponents in my combat class.......

What about Carrie? Well, here's the deal. I am aware of the natural/birth order of things. I am aware that it is societally expected of me to reach these mating milestones first, as I am the older child. I have not yet reached any mating milestones. What can I say? I'm not engaged. I was almost engaged once (to The Alcoholic Workaholic) and that wouldn't have been a good story. So, what about Carrie? I think there are other things about Carrie that might be worth mentioning, such as Carrie works really hard at her job and is doing her best to set herself up for success in 2010. Carrie has great friends and a very active social life. Carrie writes a well-received blog about dating, mating and relating. Carrie is very happy in a healthy relationship with a great guy, the sex maniac known as G Spot. All in all, Carrie is good. Why is it, then, that the only thing that's interesting about Carrie in my mother's friends eyes, is my marital status or lack thereof???

Here are some points that I might mention to my mother after I have worked it out with my therapist:
* Carrie is right where she needs to be. Carrie, over the past few years, has had 3 men tell her that they want to spend the rest of their lives with her and it was said of their own free will - Carrie never applied any pressure
* Carrie has dated many people over many years and has taken the time to reflect on the qualities that she can do without and made a laundry list of the qualities that she needs
* Carrie does not want to date or be married to anyone who is lacking the qualities that it would take to be happily married
* Carrie enjoys her independence and also enjoys being in a relationship that lacks the drudgery of a life spent living with a partner
* Carrie, being a disenchanted atheist who has enjoyed sex before marriage for many years, fears ever having a church ceremony in case she bursts into flames....