Smug Married People: Your Ring Doesn't Make You An Expert At Life

I went to a wedding a few weeks ago and bumped into a friend I've known my entire adult life but only see every 3 to 4 years. She met and liked my date, and suggested I go ahead and "marry this one."

It was the third wedding date she'd said something similar about, and she's not being glib; she's just a smug married.

What's a smug married? Smug marrieds are the kind of people who divide their lives into two parts, and frankly, they couldn't even recall what life was like before the ring, because it was just too inconsequential.

Don't get me wrong: a smug married hasn't had a dream wedding board next to her Corey Haim poster, she didn't plan on moving from her daddy's house to her sorority house to her husband's house, and she doesn't have zero life outside of her relationship, necessarily.

But she (or he) does possess a certain smirk which only curls around her mouth when it bleats out "my marriage," or, "my husband (or wife)."

The smug married will never tell you that a marriage is all peaches, cream, and puppy dog feet. They delight in reveling in how hard it is with the underlying implication (as almost all implications are) that "you don't even know the half of it, man."

And this is one of the biggest problems with a smug married: he exemplifies an insidious belief that seems to pervade all segments of our culture; that you can't even imagine what you don't know that he does.

His experience is so alien to your own that, despite likely having married parents, relatives and friends, you couldn't even hope to understand what it's really like. It's practically solipsistic and we all know that solipsism doesn't make friends.

In roughly all cultures, by last count, marriage is a rite of passage — a transition between lesser adulthood and real, grown-ass people adulthood. Like the first crimson streak in a pair of underpants or in my case, a first nocturnal emission, it's a signal that you've put away childish things even if you still play Xbox or frequent any of the TMZ properties.

And the smug married looks at you, patronizingly, and lets you know, "Hey, it's OK. I was once like you."

Here's the deal: we're NOT jealous of you. Annoyed? Sure. But remember, you're not an expert at life just because you tricked someone into saying they'd spend the rest of their life with you.

I'm willing to bet any determined person reading this could be married in 6 months if they set out today with that as a goal. You can't even get six-pack abs in 6 months. Zach Efron has like a twelve-pack; Zach Efron is twice as good as your marriage.

Furthermore, the divorce rate has hung steady at 50% for the last three plus decades. Sounds great, bros. I'd guess that if more than one smug married turned painfully into a sad, divorced person, they would've had a more sympathetic support network if he (or SHE!) hadn't been such a — for lack of a better term — f*cking f*cker about the whole thing.

We get it: the best way to become a millionaire in the country is to get and stay married. And, yeah, you guys do seem to have nicer stuff since you've pooled certain expenses. (FYI, you pay more in taxes than two individuals of similar incomes would pay separately, because of this.)

But that's not what this is about. You're just better than us and you can't stop telling us about it. The only thing worse than smug married couples are smug married couples who crossfit and are currently on a cleanse.

I'm not against marriage. I like you; I like your spouse. It's possible that you've discovered something heretofore unknown to our species. But it seems a little specious, guy. 

I'm amped that The Supreme Court said it's cool for gay folks to freely join the matrimonial party*. I just think the rest of us are sick of hearing that being married is the best thing since cucumber bacon mojitos in St. Bart's.

But please don't let this stop you from inviting me to your wedding.

(*I'd like to draw the line at people marrying animals because they could slippery slope their way into marrying water, or the concept of valor, if we're not careful.)