Wedding days

I'm just going to ramble on a bit here, as I've not written anything for a couple of weeks, and I've had an eventful day. Not sure if any of it will prove interesting, but thus far hardly anyone's reading it anyway, so if you've made it here, congratulations.

Had a wedding to go to today, of a friend of mine I don't see all that often, because she lives a while away, so was nice to catch up with her and other people in her loop that I rarely see. I normally only see them once a year when she has a birthday barbecue, which I feel bad about, because ideally I'd be able to drag them up to my neck of the woods, but I just don't really get the opportunity, and while we all get on well we're not really close enough to warrant a mass journey for no particular reason, as opposed to a wedding. Plus pretty much everyone in this group is married with children, adding an extra complication to organising random gatherings.

Anyway, good to chat to them all, but I do get weirded out by the contrast between them and my friends back home, which is all the weirder because of the similarities, if that makes sense. Broadly speaking, they're a group of friends who have known each other since school, with a few additions and subtractions, both partners and other friends, which is exactly the same as my friends where I live. However, us up north have a mix of marriages, long and short-term relationships, and singletons, with only one recently-born child, whereas down south they're pretty much all married with multiple kids.

It's a very odd difference - partly because we're all similar ages, but mostly because it's so consistent. I could understand if, say, half of each group was married with kids and the other half weren't, but having such a clear split makes me wonder what's going on. Obviously not any grand plan, but whether it's a lifestyle thing, or whether because one couple got married and pregnant quite early (by my standards, anyway - 21/22ish), the seed was sown in the others, and things kicked off. Hmm.

Personally I'm happy being in the childless section, partly because, well, I just am, but also being single myself it's frankly less worrisome rather than being constantly surrounded by happy couples. Actually, a couple of guys in this group are single too, and chatting today we became fairly certain there were no single women at this wedding whatsoever, beyond the waitresses who all looked 12 anyway. Probably 20ish, but still weird. So while the day itself was fantastic (even got a ride in a hot air balloon, which was an unexpected bonus), mildly disappointing that there were no available women to be rejected by. Ah well.

Although on the plus side, when driving home, just as I got back to the bottom of town where most of the pubs/clubs are, a fight broke out and a load of policemen immediately dove in, bundling one guy to the ground right in front of my car - luckily far enough in front I could brake in time, rather than just driving over them.

Three thoughts occurred - the first was on my usual "people are fuckwits" theme, namely this moron thinking it was a good idea to start a fight with so many coppers nearby, and then to try taking them on as well. Alcohol or no alcohol, you don't do that unless you're a fucking retard.

The second was the coincidences in daily life. I'd had an hour-long drive and this fight fell literally feet in front of my car, causing the police to hold up traffic for a bit with me having a front-row view. If I'd left the wedding just a few seconds earlier or later, or driven a tiny bit slower or faster, I'd have either gone by just before it started, and I'd never have seen it, or else I'd have been stuck several cars back not seeing what the holdup was, or else I'd have arrived after everything and not known anything had happened. Makes you wonder about all the events and opportunities in life that we come so close to without ever knowing it. Or of course all those moments we're lucky enough to have experienced which we very nearly didn't.

And the third thought was how young all the policemen and women looked. Crap, I'm so old.