Always A Bridesmaid, Never A Bride

I found out tonight that I am going to be a bridesmaid for the third time.
And a Maid of Honour for the first. Does that still make me a bridesmaid I wonder? I am really the "only" bridesmaid/maid of honour at the wedding, as her sisters may bicker and she is a bit uncertain . . .so was thinking, just one.

I'm absolutely stoked!!! Mara and Isaac are a couple that have been together for years now, and one of those couples you look at and can just tell that they were made for each other. There is that spark between them, and they are so comfortable with each other. I balled my eyes out alone when I found out they were engaged.

I feel very awesome and somewhat powerful at having being a bridesmaid for the third time in my little life. It feels somewhat fulfilling, and loved, and a pleasure to play a prominent role in the special day of so many beautiful couples, some very close friends.

Although when I got home and tole my parents, there was a somewhat "less" enthusiastic approach to it all. Nothing negative and dreary, but just being approached with these two blank stares that kind of say 

"Always a Bridesmaid, never a bride . . . "

Like it's a bad thing! Fuck!

I do think my parents, particularly my dad, expect something else of me. They expect marriage and kids, they hint it all the time. They are always asking when a good man will come along, and if they have to rely on my one straight brother, who is a drunken redneck idiot with one son to a one-night stand featuring an overweight dole-bludger with another fatherless child, to provide them with [illegitimate] grandchildren.

Get the fuck over it.

I'm only 25. I don't understand why the whole world around me, featuring school mates and even people younger than I, are all knocking themselves up and getting married, off with permanent full-time jobs for life, buying houses and living such committed lives. Some of them spent the first half of their youth wild and free to some sort of extent. But then they all turned about 20, if that, entered committed relationships, popping out kids, marriages and houses by 25 . . .

I am the real black sheep.

I consider myself too morally inclined, too "free-spirit", with too much of a hatred for boredom and routine to enter any sort of lifestyle like that anytime soon. When I did waste half of my youth (till I was 22) with a long-term relationship, I was also looking at committment and having a child around age 25.

Then I became single. Then I discovered LIFE.

And my outlook has never been the same. Perhaps, it has rather, pushed aside boundaries, and really expanded itself.

I find inspiration everywhere, and all I want to do is learn, learn, learn. I want to try numerous different jobs. I want to travel. I want to explore anything and everything the world has to offer, really.

I haven't time to be held down in a relationship. To have to drag along someone who does not want to be there, or have someone drag me to a position I am uncomfortable with. I experienced that enough already, and what ar regret that was.
Learn from the lessons. Duh.

Of course, there is always a chance that someone will pop up who is right for me, who I can drag everywhere, and have him drag me somewhere, and we can both be on the same plane of existence, wanting to experience the same things. That would be magical.

But I'm not going to sit back and wait for it to happen.

How the fuck can people turn to me and ask when I am going to find a man, when am I going to pop out kids?
Look around. The right ones/one aren't exactly flying at me.
Common sense prevails, why the fuck would I place myself in the hands of someone who is not right for me.
There is a reason I've been single for almost 4 years now.

Cunts deal with it.

I do also adore how  this last image, an old school ad from I think the 40's, relates "Always a Bridesmaid, Never A Bride" to having bad breath.
Hilarious!
Why on earth does this idiom have to have such a negative connotation?! No way! I'm proud as pie!