Saturday, August 23, 2014

Unmarried Trip

I have a boyfriend. We’ve been dating for 6 years now and I am going to New York with him for vacations. Not that difficult to understand, right? WRONG. Whenever I say that I am going with him – an UNMARRIED woman – it shocks people (coworkers/friends/family/you name it).  

I live in a small city in Mexico. I call it a ranch with pavement. Everyone knows everyone, or has a friend that knows that person. So the reaction I had with some family members is that “it’s a married thing” and “what would people said”. I am a 26 year old woman that earns her own money and helps/supports a part of the house. I live alone in the house almost 1/3 of the time. But no one seems to care about that. Only that I am not married to him and going to a 6 night trip with him.
Last Thursday when my friends and coworkers asked me with who I was going on my vacations I had the SAME reaction. It’s annoying. One friend was the only one that said something against them like who cares and we are all grownups.  I don’t understand. What’s worse is that there is a double moral about this. No one cares about an unmarried man going on a trip with his girlfriend. It’s me the only one that gets those reactions. Nobody seems to remember that we’ve been together for 6 years and it’s not someone that I just met that can kill me in the trip or that all my family and friends know him well. Only “what the people would say…” As if I know those people or care about them.
As a matter of fact – just weeks before buying the plane tickets, some family members told me that they were not okay with me going – bummer! I also think “what this trip has given me?” Strength. In other times – if they were to say that to me, I would have canceled my trip. Because their opinion matters so much to me and it would have affected me deeply. But this time I got REALLY mad and woman up and said to myself “enough is enough!” I told them straight “I am going and I am going to buy the tickets”. And I made me so proud. It may seem as a small thing, but for me – someone who hates confrontations and prefers to run away – is a milestone.

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Licencia Creative Commons
Este obra está bajo una licencia Creative Commons Atribución-NoComercial 2.5 México.