THINQon : Marriage as a conversation stopper

The Living Room Psychology and character Marriage as a conversation stopper

THINQon is a platform for a more intelligent web. It aims to replace the ruling paradigm of the web – that of sharing and gathering information – with a sharing and achieving of understanding. Instead of the Q&A model it offers an experience. A platform for discovery of ideas, people, and yourself. Continue >

Mia Vialti

Marriage as a conversation stopper

Latest Post: August 25, 2011 at 11:46 PM

67 followers

I was at a cocktail party this evening, with a lot of people in their twenties and thirties. We were talking about the job market -- finally someone fed up with the uncomfortable faces says "New topic!" There were various relieved sighs.
"Let's talk about sex," someone said jokingly, and several new people appeared out of thin air and joined the buzzing little group around our table.
But then "By the way, congratulations on your marriage," someone said to one of the women in the group.
And that killed the mood entirely.

It's a phenomenon I've observed frequently and I don't get it. No one there was desperate to get married. Some were happily/newly married and none in obviously bad marriages. People are usually genuinely excited for their friends if they get married or engaged, and most people enjoy attending weddings. So why is it such a damper to bring it up in polite society?

Reply to:

Tom Kimmel, Who am I to say that I am not the center of the...

August 25, 2011 at 11:46 PM

15 followers

Mia, Hi,
An answer to your question, a guess. Its just too big a question. So many approaches and variables.

I think it was Auden who opined that any marriage is more interesting than any romance.-- Really?
How the genders actually sustain and accommodate one another in fine is wonderfully complex and perhaps is also too personal for novels or flicks or casual conversation. To say anything about it set one up for 'Oh, that's not the way I see it at all.', doesn't it? Or, more prudently, silence.

How did the congratulations kill the mood? Harder to say than imagine.