The other night I was lying in bed, failing to fall asleep and thinking about how much of a pick-me I used to be, as one does. I was struck with a memory of being younger (early twenties?) and considering marriage, hypothetically, and how it would be different from a boyfriend/girlfriend relationship. I remembered being overcome with a feeling of discomfort as I imagined myself married. Not for any of the many valid reasons there are to be wary of marriage as a woman – the pervasive inequity, loss of autonomy, a lifetime of picking up someone else’s dirty socks. Not even because I wanted to keep my options open or felt hesitant about “same penis forever.”

When I imagined myself as married, the discomfort I felt was an overwhelming feeling of guilt. Guilt that I would be disappointing a whole host of men by making myself permanently unavailable to them. I was thinking about real people, ex-boyfriends and past flirtations; but also, hypothetical men I’d yet to meet.

In recounting this, it might sound like I thought very highly of myself. And in some ways, my awareness of my own attractiveness probably was a factor, because I don’t think I’d have had these thoughts if I wasn’t accustomed to getting attention from men. But the guilt was not so much a feeling of “oh, I’m so great, it would be a shame to deprive people of experiencing my awesomeness!” It was more of a feeling that I tacitly owed it to the men of the world to be available to them. Not that I necessarily owed every man sex or a relationship. But that I owed them the opportunity to try to pursue me, or at least to entertain the idea. Even if just as a future or backup option in their minds. Even if they weren’t men I’d ever actually consider. I felt like I would be doing something wrong by making myself permanently unavailable, because I’d be denying these men the ability to see me as an option. As if it was my responsibility to make sure any man I might encounter could at least fantasize a chance with me, without my ruining it by having a ring on my hand. To keep them from even fleeting disappointment at not having the chance to shoot their shot.

I wouldn’t have been able to explain why I felt that way back then, but now that I can, I’m half laughing and half horrified by the extent of my internalized misogyny. It’s kind of a twisted misogyny, because shouldn’t any good little product of the patriarchy aspire to marriage as her ultimate goal? But somehow I ended up feeling I should be an option to all men instead of the property of one. Maybe I wanted validation from as many as possible? I think as I got older and friends started getting married I shifted more towards the traditional, marriage-focused internalized misogyny. Until, anyway, my most recent breakup and finding FDS. Now, I'm once again wary of the hypothetical of being married, but this time it's for the right reasons!