I could not comment on the old thread, so I figured I might as well take up some space on a new one. All these points are personal, and not meant as broad generalizations of the custom.

I, as well, hate weddings. I am agressively lazy, so the idea of getting up, getting ready, and driving to a place I don't want to be to please my relatives is unappetizing. I love my family, every single one of them, and I hope the feeling is reciprocated, but it is not just immediate family that is present: it's family of both bride and groom, friends of friends of friends of friends, anybody they might have known from the long ago they decided to invite. I hate hit-and-run conversations where I have to ask the same half dozen questions to a hundred people. I don't really drink, and being pressured into drinking is even worse: "Dude, it's a wedding!" Leaving first, as would be my preference, would be unseemly. I am not averse to social customs, I just don't like being in crowded places with sweaty, drunk people. I'd rather sit in my car, listen to Stephanie Miller, and smoke a pack of cigarettes.

I have to attend a wedding in three weeks, and I do not want to go. At the very least, Edmure and Roslin aren't getting married.

Oh, good, the thread closed before I had a chance to post some thoughts.

1. GP (Gay Philosopher) is a capable, able-bodied adult. There is simply no reason to attend a wedding if you hate them. Send a gift and your regrets and be done with it. I can really only think of one reason why a person would A) go to a wedding when he hates weddings and B) come back here to post his bitching about it: perhaps he enjoys the role of victim. Why else would you choose to do something you find hateful and painful? Why else would you call public attention to your personal misery?

2. I may be the only woman on this board who also hates weddings, but I'm at least willing to own up to my own self-loathing projections about that opinion. The real, secret reason I hate weddings is because nobody ever asked me to be his partner. No man ever loved me enough to even want to marry me. Ever. So every time I go to a wedding, I feel that sting of rejection and realize what a past-expiration-date loser I really am and how the mormons were right that I am so damaged that no good, kind decent man will ever want me. However, sometimes I go to weddings to show my support for the couple's relationship. That is the purpose of weddings to get community acceptance and support of the partnership. So in a no-gay-marriage state, I can understand why a gay man would find these weddings to be hypocritical lies. Makes total sense from his perspective. (Easy solution: so don't go. Why is that so difficult?)

3. I live in a no-gay-marriage state, however. My county recently passed an ordinance allowing people to register their domestic partnerships. The other counties in this state won't recognize the dp, but it's something. A step in the right direction. See, I think it would be cool if straight people could have domestic partnerships as well. I think marriage is an obsolete and unnecessary, archaic, pointless thing. But I can see good reasons to partner up with someone.

So my BFF is gay. 19 years ago, he and the love of his life had a "wedding". Of course their partnership was not acknowledged or recognized in this state, so a friend made up a little marriage license and I and another witness signed it. Another friend conducted a little backyard ceremony. Then the alcohol started flowing, the music got all loud, and my friend's backyard sounded like a gay bar at midnight on Saturday night. ;>) That was a wedding I could get down with.

This year, on their 19th anniversary, they went to the county courthouse and registered as domestic partners. My friend's husband finally made an honest man out of him.

I don't see any reason to get on the internet and start posting bitter rants about why weddings suck. If you are so miserable at a wedding, do not go! RSVP your regrets, send a gift if you wish, and go on about your life, which is far too short to spend victimizing yourself by attending events and activities that you hate.

+1