Planning Ahead

One of the things I hate the most about this stage of life is not being able to plan effectively. Besides for it being distracting, always having this "other" priority on my mind aside from what's in front of me at any given moment (talk to/meet this person, look into that name, find out who knows so-and-so, network, follow up that idea, etc etc), I also just don't know when I might need to free up time to go on a date. Maybe it sounds ridiculous, but I like to keep busy, and I hate having to back out of commitments. It's a J thing.

As a current example, even just arranging a vacation is complicated. My friends and I have given up the "I have no idea what my life will look like in two months; maybe I'll be dating the guy of my dreams and won't want to go away for a week," yet the uncertainty of the future bites in other ways. Of course all of our top destination picks are Zika-infected, so we've decided to avoid them. (There goes my French Polynesian honeymoon too I guess. Tears.)

Here's the catch: how likely is it, even if one of us started dating someone with serious potential tomorrow, that we would want to start a family eight weeks (and the CDC suggests a six months waiting period for guys) after being exposed to the possibility of getting bitten by a potentially Zika-carrying mosquito? Ch"vsh should any of us contract Zika, it isn't even proven that Zika causes microcephaly in newborns. And, it's only a virus, like the flu, that lasts less than a week, only of which 20% of infected people exhibit any symptoms at all, of which are relatively mild. On the off chance we might meet The One and have a really quick dating/engagement period and decide to start a family right away, we shouldn't go somewhere where there's a chance of getting Zika and an even slimmer chance of it affecting this theoretical newborn. Although, it seems Zika is frightening enough, I guess, because the CDC has issued travel warnings, and scientists are scrambling to learn more about it and produce a vaccine.

We don't take a gamble on health/life. Plan for the unknown even if it's super unlikely to happen.

I was debating this point with someone (married) recently, and she said that you never know when or what is going to happen. She didn't agree with me that you can at least know who you're going to face this ambiguous life with or what sort of general path your life will take. "Anything can happen," she said. That may be true, but really, once you're married you're even just that much more settled. It's less likely that something will happen that will cause you to relocate and rearrange your whole life. Super life transitions can happen at any time, but they're a number of "regular" transitions that are likely to occur, and these type of things are statistically less likely to happen out of the blue. Maybe it's hard to empathize with this feeling if you've never been here.

Somehow, no matter what, dating always takes precedence. "Don't you want to get married?!"