Dear Digital Diary,

who’s ready to get hitched?

While summer ends, the engagement season begins. And I, recently single after a brutal break up, am far from that.

I believe things happen for a reason, which is why this post isn’t coming from a jealous or malicious place. I have equanimity — a total mental balance no matter the situation — and I understand that my current life is just how it should be. That some of my childhood friends being married with kids is how their life is supposed to play out. And that some of my ex friends posting their engagement photos is how their life is supposed to play out.

But as I’m scrolling through Instagram, I can’t help but wonder how many marriages I’ve avoided.

I could be a good wife, if I played my cards right. If I stuffed some of the cards in the hem of my pants and accidentally swiped a card onto the floor. If I had cheated the rules a bit, I’d be married by now.

I believe that it’s easy to get engaged to a man who wants a wife. You could be beautiful and strong and witty, but that wouldn’t matter. All you have to do is emulate what his perfect wife would be and just go along with that.

In my case, I could’ve been married on three separate occasions.

To the guy I sort of dated post-high school, if I had just accepted that we’d date every summer, keep things boring and casual, and stay in my hometown forever, perhaps we’d be married by now.

But I wouldn’t have gone to school in Savannah or had my eyes set on city living. I wouldn’t have gone anywhere or done anything. I’d be miserable. I want a bigger life than that.

Then there was a guy I’d met at a wedding a few years ago. We kept in contact after the wedding, but it was brief. See, if I hadn’t challenged his views, perhaps he would’ve kept talking to me. If I’d been Mormon still — and a better one than I ever was — maybe we’d have a kid. But although I grew up in the church, I no longer identify with it, and therefore refuse to nod my head and smile, pretending to believe things that I don’t.

Within the year he’d met me, he’d found a different woman and married her. It would have been simple, but I like coffee and clubs and women’s rights too much.

And then there’s the guy that always needed external validation. If I’d fed into his ego a little bit more, if I put him on a pedestal and bowed to him, he wouldn’t have cheated. Or maybe he would’ve, but he may have said sorry, and I would’ve just accepted that it wasn’t about me and that a boundary wasn’t crossed. Maybe by the time he was thirty and grown up a little, I’d be his wife.

But I want to be enough for the man that I love. I don’t want to just be a fan, and I’ll never tolerate that level of disrespect.

If I was more of a yes-woman, I could have a ring on my finger. It’d be expensive, three-stoned and silver. It’d look pretty with my nails done. But the cost of marriage would be more than the cost of that ring, and I don’t have any self-respect to spare.

A woman can manufacture a marriage by becoming convenient. But the fact that you could have manufactured one doesn’t mean you missed out on one.

I don’t want to become someone’s wife bad enough to become somebody I’m not. If I have to change my lifestyle, my ideologies, or my boundaries, I just don’t want it.

So who’s ready to get hitched?

Apparently not me — and that’s just fine.