Eat Your Hearts Out, Single Ladies

Here is some interesting news: I am married.

I used to wonder if God had decided I was supposed to be single all my life. It seemed like there was no one for me. Then I tried a couple of interracial dating sites, and within 11 days, I had found someone I could find no reason not to marry. Three days later, I told her I loved her. We kept talking, and I never did find any reason to think she wasn’t perfect for me.

Two months later, we flew to Egypt to meet each other. We already knew we were going to be married. We thought we would be applying for a fiancee visa for her, and to get that, we needed to prove we had met in person. A few days into the trip, I proposed.

Later I found out it would be better to marry and apply for a spouse visa. To get that, we needed to have a wedding and then get together a second time, to show the State Department the marriage had been consummated.

We looked for countries where we could both travel during the pandemic and which would be willing to allow us to marry on their soil. Iceland looked good for a while, but we eventually decided it was best to avoid the expense, time waste, and trouble of going to a foreign country simply to marry. I found out we could marry online, so we chose to do that instead. Marrying online left us free to honeymoon in a nicer place than Iceland.

Last week I got us a Utah marriage license, and today we had a Zoom ceremony attended by 17 friends and relations.

We have known each other 129 days.

Before we met each other, the field of marriage was like a wall of thistles to us. There was no way to get through. Once we came together, everything fell into place without effort.

I say I didn’t find any reason to think she wasn’t perfect for me. It’s really that simple. I never had a particular kind of person in mind. I never had a list; this age, that height, and so on. I just wanted a good Christian woman who knew God very well and who was attractive and compatible with me. Other than that, she didn’t have to have any particular traits. I was open to anything, as long as I couldn’t find any deal-breaking qualities.

It sounds like it should have been easy, but my efforts yielded nothing of use until I met Rhodah. She doesn’t match some target image I created. I just can’t find any problems with her. Since then, it has been as though we were sliding down a greased path.

Grooms are supposed to have cold feet. I didn’t. I felt a very small amount of anxiety, but the truth is that I have felt more nervous about stock trades.

Today hasn’t been a nerve-wracking day. It’s about like yesterday, except now I’m married. The big difference is that I feel I can relax more with Rhodah. There is a part of you you will always hold back when you’re single, and now that part of me is hers, permanently.

I don’t feel bad about having an online wedding, and neither does she. I feel as though I should feel bad, but I don’t feel bad. It seems as though it was the most natural choice in the world.

I don’t feel like I married my girlfriend. I feel like I married my wife.

Now we have to get her a Swiss visa while the door is still open, and we have to make plans. I have a ring on the way. It has to be appraised before I approve it, and then we have to meet in Switzerland.

There really are low-maintenance women out there. They are rare, and when you know one, it takes a while to believe what you see. Rhodah is low-maintenance. She didn’t buy a dress for the ceremony until today. She had me on video chat while she visited the mall. She kept telling me she hated shopping. She couldn’t wait to go home. She looked at about 6 dresses, total.

What kind of woman hates shopping? What kind of woman agrees to an online wedding ceremony, enthusiastically, goes to the mall on her wedding day to buy the dress, and then complains that she hates shopping?

The low-maintenance kind.

She looked beautiful, too. She wore a nice royal blue dress with a modest cut. We’re hoping to redo our vows with a preacher, so there was no point in buying a gown for today’s event.

It was wonderful having so many friends watching. I think of myself as a hermit, but I had over a dozen good friends watching, and I could have had a few more. How many people have a dozen worthwhile friends? Most people don’t even have one.

Almost all of my friends entered my life through church. I think that explains things.

To make the day even better, I found out I still had a pearl necklace that belonged to my mother. I had thought my sister had taken it. It has two strands of pearls and a diamond locket with a ruby in the center. Our wedding ring is a ruby with a diamond halo. Now Rhodah has something to wear it with.

I wish she could have my mother’s gold Rolex with the malachite face and diamond bezel, but that went to a pawn shop in Miami a long time ago, along with the other things I didn’t ask for.

I’m a husband. I can say “my wife.” From now on when I fill out forms, I have to check the “married” boxes. I don’t need a will; I have someone who will automatically inherit everything. When I’m with a single woman who seems eligible, I won’t have to wonder if I should do anything, because I shouldn’t.

I also have someone to support, but the same God who brought me a wife will help me feed her. After all, as the Bible says, “He who finds a wife finds a good thing and obtains favor from the Lord.”

I don’t know if I’ll still want to blog. We’ll have to see how things unfold.