Marry me by the dumpster for a week, please.

(Please note that this may be the creepiest picture I have ever found on the internets. I'm sorry.)

When I was in elementary school we played this really fun game on the playground in which we married our classmates in an elaborate marriage ceremony by the dumpster. The students would peel themselves away from King of the Mountain, and waddle over in their snow pants as two of our classmates exchanged poorly written vows and rings made out of Laffy Taffy's from our lunch boxes. The couple was always the latest 5th grade crushes, excluding the time this one girl married this dead squirrel that had fallen from a tree and we had covered with a trash can during the ceremony.

As I think about it in my early 20s, I often wonder why I never got married in those elementary school weddings. I certainly had my fair share of 5th grade crushes who were certainly biting at the bit to marry me next to the dumpster, but I always opted out. Even to my 5th grade boyfriend who romantically gave me a $5 Caribou gift card because he thought I was pretty-ish.

 I have entertained the thought that perhaps I am not "the marrying kind", but as I watch my former playmates grow up and settle down with live-in boyfriends or marry the women they love, I wonder if perhaps it is not that I am not the "marrying kind", rather I have a very low tolerance for dating.

My childhood chums have put up with a lot of foolishness on their adventures in dating throughout the years, and I (ironically) have a very low tolerance for foolishness. (Ironic because I have been regarded as possibly one of the most foolish humans to ever grace the world with my foolishness. How foolish.) I have never been able to play the game of pouting my puckers around a good gent or doing my best mating dance at the bar. No, no, no, none of that for me. I'd rather stay at home snuggled in with my Pillow Pet than endure that sort of horror.

So my conclusion is this: I am sure sometime in my life I will be "the marrying kind", and the truth is at 22 I am far too fabulous to settle down quite yet. The "foolish" games of the 20-something dating scene are definitely not this gal's style. I will not be putting on any hoochie dresses and strutting my stuff through Cowboy Slims with "mY bEST giRLIES!!! xoxoxoxo" anytime soon, but perhaps I could make myself a little more bearable to date. I could even start by not laughing at someone who asks me out on a date (this may or may not have happened in the recent past...woops)! Yay!

.....who wants to exchange laffy taffy rings by the dumpster?