10 Ways to Waste Less Time on a Guy You'll Never Marry (advice for my single friends)

Jay and me taking our own Easter pic because kids suck

Summer is approaching and that means it’s time for my anniversary, which obviously makes me grateful for making a really good choice 17 years ago.

And it’s wedding season for all my friends in their 20s and that makes me think about that time in my life when it seemed like every weekend from May to September we had another wedding to attend.

It’s also time for graduations and that turns my mind to the two groups of beautiful girls I got to walk with for a season of their high school years—one group is a year out of college and the other is a year out of high school at this point. They are just entering those years of wedding fever and never-ending “save the date” cards.

And then I thought, wouldn’t it be fun if I could help my single-girl friends in some small way with what I’ve learned from my marriage and the marriages (both successful and not-so-much) of my friends and family. 

So, for all my singletons, here are my suggestions on how to keep from wasting too much of your time on a guy you won’t end up marrying.

1. Be a really good friend

You should be a really good friend to all the guys AND girls in your life, whether or not you’re thinking of dating them. When someone needs to talk, you listen. When someone needs help moving, you bring a label maker. When someone is having a hard time, you offer encouragement.  Don’t talk about your friends behind their backs. Don’t judge them for whatever ridiculous (to you) problem they have going on.  Don’t attempt to solve their (or your) problems with tequila. It does not ever make anything better.

Do you know what happens when you’re a good friend? You become a better person. And you’re better able to identify the people in your life (male and female) who help make you a better person. Because I married my very best friend, I have run marathons, and made paintings we hang in our house, and spent the summer in Europe. Jay spurs me on, makes me better, and encourages me to do great things. I’d never have had that kind of love in my corner if I hadn’t been a good friend first.

2. Watch how he treats other people

When you spend time with a guy pay special attention to how he talks to and about the other people in his life. Does he gripe about his mom always being on his case? Does he badmouth his roommate? Does he complain about his boss all the time? That is not going to get better with age. Even if his boss sounds like an evil minion from the Hell of Retail Inventory Night and his mom makes Martha Stewart look laid back, he has a choice. He could choose a different attitude, he could choose a different job, he could shut up about his mom because she gave him life, for Pete’s sake.  If his bad mood is always someone else’s fault, don’t bother.

A corollary to this one is to pay attention to how he talks to strangers. If he is rude or dismissive to wait staff or acts annoyed by all the other people on the sidewalk, he is not a nice person inside.

3. Compare your goals and values

The goals one is kind of tricky because he (and you) may not exactly know what all your goals are. You might, but you are just as likely for those goals to shift as your life changes. So I’m not talking about things like “we both want to be attorneys.” I mean way more broad things like “I’d like to have a family one day” or “I’d like to travel with my kids” or “I want to work with a non-profit.” Even if life doesn’t exactly work out that way, these dreamy kinds of conversations reveal a lot about what is important to a person. If he says he never wants kids (and you do), believe him and move on—there is no middle ground on children. If he says he wants to spend his 20s really focusing on his career, but you want to get married, trust that he means it and check back when he’s 30. If he says his current goal is to buy the newest Xbox whatever, he is not yet a grownup and does not understand the concept of a goal. Back away slowly so as not to startle him.

His values should be ones you value. He should be loyal and faithful to his family. He should be loyal and faithful to his friends and controlled substances should have no effect on that. He should finish what he starts. He should work hard and save money and not waste what he has. (Side note: if you are having a hard time valuing these things you should not be in a serious relationship. You are not yet a grownup and it is his turn to back away slowly.) 

You should share the same faith and not because one of you requires it of the other. Although I certainly know couples who have different beliefs and live happy lives, it is much easier if you don’t have to navigate that particular landmine. At some point in life, you and your husband are not going to feel in love. If you both love the same God, then at least your hearts are still pointing in the same direction. This is a much easier reason to walk away before a deep relationship starts than it is after.

4. Look for his commitment level (and not to his fantasy football league)

Marriages only succeed if divorce is not an option to both parties. If one of you is just “hoping for the best,” I have news:  No one’s marriage ever involves only “the best.” At some point, the worst or the not-so-great or the horrifyingly mundane are going to occur and you need someone who understands commitment. So if he flits from job to job without giving reasonable notice or his friends make jokes about how he never shows up on time, he is not ready for a serious relationship.

5. Do something you both hate

Jay and I once volunteered to help build a Habitat for Humanity house and we had a terrible time. It was 147 degrees, it was an all day commitment on a Saturday, and we are apparently very bad manual laborers. We were tired and cranky and really disappointed to discover that we are, in fact, incredibly selfish jerks. But we also made each other laugh (when we passed briefly on our way to another mind-numbing task) and encouraged each other and have joked about how miserably we failed to be altruistic for years. So fold laundry or do your taxes or babysit some horrible children.  A lot of life is doing tasks you don’t want to do and someone who can make the experience better, even if neither of you is having fun, is a person worth keeping.

6. Talk about something controversial

Pick a topic—abortion, police brutality, marriage equality, war, famine, the mess that is the Big Ten (it does NOT have 10 teams)—and ask what he thinks.

You’re not actually looking for the two of you to agree—you’re looking for how he talks about topics with emotional responses. If a person can’t see the other side of a situation or if their own feelings bring out severe language or anger, that person is probably not going to fight fair when he’s upset. And you need to be able to fight fair in a grown-up relationship. You have to be able to look past your own feelings and try to see what your partner is saying. If a guy can’t talk about a political topic without cursing and derogatory language, then be prepared to be cursed at and insulted when you get into a fight.

7. Meet his family. All of it.

You are, too, marrying his family. I don’t know why people say “you’re not marrying his MOM” or whatever, because you totally now belong to another family and all their crazy once you are married. And every family has crazy. I’m not going to offer examples because my family might read this—just know that I have wonderful in-laws whom I love very much and yet, the crazy stories are there. They always are. Clearly, you are not likely to hang out with some dude’s family before you have a relationship of some sort, but before you decide to get hitched forever you should see how he interacts with his family and whether or not you’d be willing to have your kids call that woman Grandma. They certainly don’t have to be perfect, but he should be able to be kind and loving to them while still acknowledging that they are (at least a little bit) crazy.

8. Want to have sex with him (later)

Notice that I did not list one this first. Our culture tends to make this “spark” the first checkmark on the dating possibility list and then tries to wade through the other qualities in a person later. But the reality is that finding someone attractive is really not that hard. I can think of several people I wouldn’t mind having sex with and not all of them are Ryan Gosling. Although I’m not sure I trust anyone with abs like that so maybe Chris Pratt… or Indiana Jones (not Harrison Ford, the actual treasure-hunting professor)… I have a thing for swashbuckling goofballs…o.k. I’m losing the thread here...

The point is that the “spark” is possible with lots of people in your life so, yes, it should be there, but it shouldn’t be given as much weight as our society tends to give it. All sparks have their ups and downs and a lot of people equate that feeling with love. When their spark is on a downturn for days or weeks or even months, they say they’ve “fallen out of love” or “grown apart” and notice that spark in a coworker or old friend and over time a marriage ends. So, yeah, want to have sex with him, but make sure you’re paying attention to all the other points before you do anything about it. 

9. Discount his willingness to have sex with you

For some reason women tend to read extra meaning into a guy’s desire. It makes us feel beautiful or sexy or wanted and that has value to us. Just like it is not all that special for you to be attracted to a guy, it is not all that special for him to be attracted to you. Clearly, he should be into you. And if he asks you out, he is. But all that means is that sex is fun and you seem willing, not that he is the one true love of your life. Don’t confuse the point.

10.  Pray

Right before my wedding I was sitting in the bridal room in the narthex of a little church listening to guests enter and be seated and I had a near panic attack. I sat there thinking, “what I am doing, this is ridiculous, marriage is forever, oh no, oh no, oh no. Alright, this is your last chance to back out—do you want to leave?” So I prayed and asked God, “is this right?” And then I remembered that I was promising myself to Jay, my best friend, the person with whom I wanted to do all the tasks of my life—silly, adventurous, mundane—and I smiled. Marriage is scary. Marriage to Jay just sounded fun. Prayer lets you take a breath and listen. Prayer lets you find focus. Prayer keeps you in love when you don’t want to be and keeps you married when you’re mad and keeps you sane when your family grows. Start before you are a couple by yourself and continue it together when you get serious.

So there you go. Ten ways to help weed out the guys who could suck you in and waste years of your life before you finally go, “wait, why am I still here?” and then have to move all of your stuff. And if you’re not in a place where you want an actual adult dating relationship, just tuck these thoughts away and practice the non-sex related ones on your friends. Good, kind people who make you better and lift your spirits are always the best ones to be around anyway.

50 States Trip #2: Mid-Atlantic States

Wanna make your minivan smell unique? Drive around with your family of 6 for a week or so visiting whichever states are within your reach in the time allotted. Our family has achieved this goal and then some. The minivan will never be the same.

We recently knocked off 5 more states and Washington, D.C. from our 50 states goal. We hit Virginia, Maryland, Delaware, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia. We also spent another night in North Carolina for the sake of logistics.

Our goal is to see everything, everywhere so that we never have to return to that place again.

No, wait. That's not our goal at all.

Our actual goal is to see a little bit of everything and encourage our kids to see traveling as one big adventure.

And I think we're doing o.k. on that one.

In North Carolina, we visited the Duke University campus and relived a bit of our younger days (before children) when Jay and I lived in Durham. It happened to be the day that Duke was playing for the NCAAchampionship so everyone we saw was wearing blue and staring at us because we weren't. And also because we have a lot of loud children.

Boys and Duke Chapel

We went to Colonial Williamsburg and Jamestown Settlement in Virginia (not on the same day) and I have to say that Jamestown won hands down for me. Not only do they have a living history museum (replica ships that brought over the first permanent settlers from England, a Powhatan village, and a recreated fort), but their indoor museum was also really well done.

Learning from an original Jamestown settler (hee-hee, 'cause he's really old)

Harry, our four-year-old, has been telling every person who asks about our trip that "all the Native Amewicans died and that made me cwy." He gleaned this information from an interactive map that showed the decrease in Powhatan settlements as the English settlements increased. You may not see that as a positive, but I am a history dork and I do. And kids could be outside and they had a musket demonstration that was a really big hit with our bloodthirsty crowd.

 

Jamestown Musket Demonstration

Williamsburg would probably be more fun if you stayed longer and participated in all of the historical reenactment activities (they have a trial and a mob that starts the revolution, for instance), but with kids ranging in age from 2 to 10 it was not that great for us. It was, however, predominantly outside and involved running, which we always appreciate.

 

The Governor's Palace in Colonial Williamsburg, VA

In Maryland we hung out in the Inner Harbor in Baltimore, ate some delicious crab cakes at Mo's, and toured Fort McHenry. McHenry's claim to fame is that it was the site of the flag that Francis Scott Key was looking for when he penned the eventual national anthem. Although we were all taught Betsy Ross's name for sewing the first American flag during the American Revolution, it was really the War of 1812 and Key's era that saw the flag as we think of it as a symbol of the United States.

 

Baltimore Lighthouse at Inner Harbor

The short film at the fort was well done and made me feel pretty darn patriotic. Although to be honest, it is not all that difficult to make me feel patriotic. I learned that Key's grandson was actually held as a prisoner in Fort McHenry during the Civil War for criticizing Lincoln's use of force in eradicating slavery from the southern states. And, of course, I was reminded yet again that I'm glad I do not live 200 years ago. Or 100. Or even 50. It was fairly cold and miserable and windy, but all the people we encountered in Maryland were incredibly nice. And if I, a native Southerner, noticed polite behavior toward others, it was above average at the least.

 

Cannons at the ready at Fort McHenry

We kept our tour of Pennsylvania to Philadelphia just so that we could see the former capital of the United States and let our kids see that broken bell. The cold and rain (and occasional sleet) followed us into Philly so our cheesesteaks wound up being needed for warmth and not just delicious sustenance. The last time we were in the City of Brotherly Love it was 95 degrees and I had to take a baby to the emergency room, so this was still better than that.

 

The Liberty Bell, up close and personal

We toured Independence Hall and saw original copies of the Declaration of Independence, the Articles of Confederation, and the U.S. Constitution. We were also unfortunately asked to leave by the grumpiest park ranger I have ever met. He was arrogant and rude and proudly told our group that he had his doctorate, which we later learned was in Sociology, not History. Our 2-year-old was rather loudly talking during the presentation and unfortunately there is no other way but the guided tour to see Independence Hall. It was embarrassing and not cool. Oh, well. I am perfectly capable of explaining what happened in those rooms to the kids and we watched National Treasure so we would feel happy about Philadelphia and Independence Hall again.

 

Independence Hall before we got kicked out

And then there was Delaware. When we got this idea to see all the states we joked about something that we could do in every one--take a picture of a mascot of some sort or drink a local beer in every state or something like that. We realized we just didn't know what to expect in each one so we haven't really been doing any of that. I do wish we had tried to take a picture of each state's welcome sign. Georgia's says "We're glad Georgia's On Your Mind," which references a great song, but is also weirdly obvious. Virginia's says "Open for Business" which feels vaguely desperate, as though you need to be reminded that it's still there. Maryland's has every color of their awesomely busy flag and an arched shape and so many words I'm not sure what it said.

But Delaware. Delaware's is plain blue with white letters and says "Welcome to Delaware." That's it. No motto or pithy saying. No colors or flag. It doesn't even say "The First State," even though Delaware was the first to ratify the Constitution. Delaware is not flashy. It is absolutely lovely in parts and incredibly industrial in parts and practical everywhere in between. When researching the state I kept running into the DuPont name--the famous chemical company started in Delaware as a black powder manufacturer when E.I. du Pont de Nemour immigrated to the U.S from France.

 

Water Power of the Brandywine River--used to make explosives by the DuPont Company

So we went to see the Hagley Museum--a former home and explosives plant for the DuPont company. It was industrialization (company village, large scale nuts and bolts and gears, industry titans) and peaceful countryside all at once. The plant was along a beautiful river with the family mansions high above overlooking the valley and out of site of the homes of their workers and their families. They have a small explosive demonstration down by the river and we got to explore outside some more. The museum staff were incredibly gracious and proud of their state and we really enjoyed visiting. We also went by the University of Delaware and Jay bought a Blue Hen Snuggie for his boss because one grown man giving another grown man a Snuggie is only made funnier by the Fightin' Blue Hen on it.

 

Small Boy Enjoys the Former Home and Gardens of Rich People

After Delaware we drove west to West Virginia with the plan of coming back through Washington, D.C. on the weekend when hotels are cheaper. This meant we drove across Maryland and into West Virginia. The drive itself was part of the activity. Flat lowlands give way to rolling hills covered in mist and mountains hidden in the clouds. When West Virginia separated from Virginia there was debate about how much of Virginia to cut off. Having driven through that area I can see why.

 

Where the Shenandoah River Meets the Potomac at Harper's Ferry, WV

The busy cities of eastern Virginia look nothing like the hills and valleys of the west. In this one shot above you are within minutes of Maryland and Virginia even though I'm standing in West Virginia. What West Virginia has to offer is a lot of natural beauty and some pretty fun outdoor activities that our youngest kids are just too young for. So we stuck to driving around and visiting Harper's Ferry, site of John Brown's ill-fated raid and so many changes-of-hand during the Civil War that the industry located there was just abandoned after the war due to damage.

Clearly we pushed the little guy hard--he woke up in time for fudge

While on this exploration from Maryland to West Virginia we stopped in Sharpsburg and saw the Antietam Battlefield, site of the bloodiest day in American history. My sons, excited to be out of the car, ran up to a photograph on display and cut in front of an older man wearing an Orioles cap. I pulled them back and told them to apologize and the gentleman said, "No, no, let them up front. We want little ones to be excited about learning their history." I could have hugged him and Maryland continued to impress me with the kindness of its citizens. Good job, Maryland.

 

Boy Inspects Civil War Cannon

Our last stop on this trip was to Washington, D.C. Quite unintentionally we managed to be in D.C. during peak cherry blossom bloom at the end of the Cherry Blossom Festival. Which means that we unintentionally saw a parade. And were unintentionally near a public suicide (although we were in a museum and the kids never knew about it). There were a lot of people, to say the least.

Cherry Blossoms and Washington Monument

Jay and I have been to D.C. several times as tourists so we stuck to the biggies for the kids this time. We saw the American History, Natural History, and Air and Space Museums (all part of the Smithsonian complex) and walked all over the Mall. We visited the Washington, Lincoln, and new(ish) Martin Luther King, Jr. memorials and walked around the Tidal Basin to see the cherry blossoms. Our weather was spectacular and our tired kids were troopers throughout the whole thing.

Our View of Lincoln

Our final day we spent driving back to Atlanta from Washington, D.C. I was worried about an entire day in the car, but we honestly had a pretty good time and the kids were so exhausted from all the D.C. walking that I think they were glad to be sitting down. Jay and I were, too, until we had to get up in Atlanta and nearly died. And, of course, we got to see the Peach Butt in Gaffney, South Carolina. House of Cards may have made it famous, but that thing's been mooning us for years. Here's to you, Peach Butt.

The Pride of Gaffney, a giant Peach Water Tower

We are now up to 11 states and D.C. crossed off our list and Jay is making hotel reservations for our next adventure as I type. Hooray for family adventure and happy travels to all.