Free Maxed Out by Kim Ross

explains a lot).
    “What happened now?” she asks, sighing. “Did you sleep with
Jeremy?”
    “Max proposed,” I say.
    Renee seems at a loss for a moment as she puts her things
down. “You’re dealing with a proposal with a pros and cons list?” she says,
finally.
    “Why not?” I ask.
    “Because you should know instantly whether or not you want
to marry him,” she says.
    “I want to be in a relationship with him and being married
seems to be the only way right now,” I say. “I just don’t want to be in a
relationship with him forever.”
    It’s weird how talking to people lets you cut right to the
root of the issue. I hadn’t managed to simplify it on quite those terms for
myself, not that clearly, but Renee walks in and it slips right out. I think of
my relationship with Max as transitory. Great, and something I want to hang onto
for a while, but transitory. Kind of like a roller coaster. It’s fun, and it’s
something you might want to ride for as long as you can, but at the end of the
day, you need to move on with your life and get off so you can actually do
something useful.
    “You’re scared of commitment,” Renee says.
    “It’s not that,” I say. “I just don’t want to be with him 30
years from now.”
    “But you like him.”
    “Yes,” I say.
    “And you enjoy being with him.”
    “Yes.”
    “So you’re scared of commitment.”
    I give her the roller coaster analogy. She doesn’t bite.
    “That’s not how it works at all,” she says. “You’re just
making excuses.”
    “I just want something safe and –“
    “You all jumped on me when I was settling for safe and you
get to set that as your ultimate life goal? Meet someone safe and get married?”
Renee says. She seems more amused than agitated.
    “Not my ultimate goal,” I say. “I just want to make sure
that if I’m stuck with someone forever that it’s someone who isn’t going to
wind up being a mistake.”
    “That’s like the definition of being scared of commitment,”
Renee says.
    “The only reason Max wants to marry me is so that he gets
more time off work,” I say. “This isn’t like he’s some almost perfect guy who
proposed on a moonlit night or something.”
    “If he was you would have just said no,” Renee says.
    “That’s not the point,” I say.
    “Max at least tried to be romantic, right?” she asks.
    “He tried to make some speech over dinner but I stopped him.
Marriage isn’t a binary decision that you should make based on some silly
cultural ceremony, it’s a bargain that should be made through civilized
discussion at some length. I don’t want to spend the rest of my life with a guy
just because he hired a company to spell my name in fireworks or something.”
    “I know you hate romance –“
    “I don’t hate it, I think it’s cute,” I say.
    “—but it sounds like based on your criteria that you at
least should go back and talk this through with Max.”
    I nod. “I’m planning on it. I just need to be confident in
my answer first.”
    “I just don’t get why you’re on the fence at all,” Renee
says. “You like spending time with him. He gets more time with you, you both
get a tax break, and you get an excuse to take a week off of work and go on a
fancy vacation somewhere. Just get a prenup and a divorce lawyer on retainer.
There’s no reason it has to be permanent.”
    “Isn’t that what marriage is?” I ask. “Permanent?”
    “It’s a legal state of affairs that provides certain
privileges,” Renee says.
    “But—“
    “No buts. If you’re not religious that’s all it is. There’s
no reason to view it as anything but temporary. Sure, there’s some financial
penalty for breaking the marriage because of legal fees and whatnot but you can
minimize that with proper planning.”
    “Why are you so cynical about all of this?”
    “You’re the one who finds romance cute,” Renee says.
“Thinking of marriage in anything other than legal terms is