"Why aren't you married?"

Why does MSN have those insanely stupid 'Today on MSN' articles that pop up when you use hotmail?

More importantly perhaps is why do I ever click on any of them? The writing is always crap, the subject stupid, the titles misleading. Must be done by republicans.

Anyway, I made the grievous mistake of clinking on one today about how to answer the question 'Why aren't you married?' This is not a question which weighs heavily on my mind or one which I have trouble answering. I am not married for the same reason I am not in the military: bad attitude and an almost pathological aversion to sacrificing personal autonomy. There are a multitude of new reasons to avoid both like the plague, but these are the ones that keep getting me. My parents have always known that these things would get in the way of me marrying and strangely enough never bothered me about marriage growing up when I would say things like, "I'll never get married," or "I'll never have kids." My mother would just quietly slip in her, "Well, that's ok, but you never know how things will turn out." The only dating advice she ever gives is "Never date anyone you couldn't see yourself marrying, but cause you don't know who you will fall in love with."

Now that they know I am gay though, they occasionally (very rarely, but from time to time) slip in little unsubtle hints when the subject is brought up and I am around, "You would make a great dad." or just to make sure that the point isn't lost that they mean with a woman, "You have great genes. It would be selfish not to pass them on." I argue that it is selfish to reproduce in an already over-populated world, which by the way is a comment which doesn't go over well with parents who have 6 kids. But just to get their goat, I bait them with comments like, "Even if I could get married, I don't think I would." Which leads to the inevitable, "You COULD get married." Which is very intentionally implying marrying a woman, so I very intentionally remind them that if I were going to marry, it wouldn't be to a she, "Not to anyone I would marry. Remember, everyone voted on that in November." "No, they voted on who should be president." "The only reason people voted for bush was because they were greedy, bigoted, and want to blow up brown people."

Anyway, blah blah blah. My parents are actually great and I salute their sly efforts cause it just gives me an excuse to make them sweat a little. The point of this post is that msn's stupid articles are retarded and today's is particularly retarded. I do not want advice about how to tell someone why I am not married from someone who is just trying to convince herself that she has good reasons. The question is dumb in the first place.