Free Getting Married by Theresa Alan Page A

Not that things can’t go wrong after that point, but there’s a better chance that things are healthy and will stick.

Chapter 8

    A t the last minute, it turns out that Will has to work late because the new software release his company just launched has bugs in it that need to be fixed pronto, so it turns out I’m on my own to meet Gabrielle and the doctor.
    We meet at a noisy pub and order some nachos and beer. Right away I can see Gabrielle’s attraction to him. He’s gorgeous. He wears glasses and all I can think of is a model wearing glasses ironically—in a sort of “look, I’m gorgeous yet smart” way.

    “Eva met her boyfriend online, too,” Gabrielle says. “How long has it been now, seven months or so?”

    “Yeah, that’s about right. I’m sorry you couldn’t meet him. He had to work.” I shovel in an enormous bite of nachos—I’m determined to get the perfect mix of bean, cheese, salsa, and sour cream on the chip, which requires a heaping, quivering mass of food. I wash it down with a swig of beer. I am in heaven.

    “It’s been this whirlwind affair,” Gabrielle adds. “I’ve never heard her talk about marriage before, and after her second date with him she was telling everybody that she could see herself spending her life with him.”

    “He’s changing your mind about taking the plunge, huh?” Jeremy says. There’s something I don’t like about his tone of voice. An edge of warning or sarcasm or something.

    I decide I don’t want to be talking to two divorced people about getting married. I don’t want them to tell me that love dies and marriage is a one-way ticket to monotony and resentment. Note to self: Befriend people who subscribe to more of “love conquers all” attitude toward life.

    “Yeah. I still have fears, of course, but the majority of the time I just look at him and feel so lucky and absolutely delirious with happiness. Of course, every now and then I get these panic attacks over the thought of actually saying ‘I do.’”

    “I think being terrified from time to time is normal,” Gabrielle says.

    “Do you mean you’re literally having panic attacks?” Jeremy asks. “Describe the symptoms.”

    “I just have these meltdowns. I just want to shut the world out and hide until it passes.”

    “Does your heart start beating rapidly? Do you feel faint or nauseated?”

    “My heart pounds. I feel light-headed, I guess.”

    “Do you sweat or tremble?”

    “I don’t think so.”

    “Do you have trouble sleeping?”

    “Always.”

    “Do you worry about things a lot?”

    “Constantly.”

    “You might have G.A.D.—Generalized Anxiety Disorder.”

    Ridiculously, I’m actually thrilled by the prospect that I have a real disease and may not just be your run-of-the-mill basketcase. Having a disease means there is some medicine out there that can treat it. Yeah for drugs!

    “Really? What can I do about it?”

    “You could take a serotonin inhibitor like Paxil.”

    “Oh. But don’t those kind of meds make it hard to ah, you know, enjoy sex?” I say.

    “It can be more challenging to achieve orgasm, but it’s not impossible,” Jeremy says.

    “Well, I tried just about all of them in the year after Dan and I separated,” Gabrielle says. “I was still on them when I started dating Ken, and I had no sex drive whatsoever. I’d think, am I supposed to want sex? Because I didn’t, not at all.”

    “Is that why Ken only lasted a month?” I ask.

    “That was part of it. Part of it was also that I still just wasn’t ready to date.”

    I’m no longer excited about the possibility of having something technically wrong with me. G.A.D. just seems like a medical term for basketcase. I don’t want to go on anti-anxiety meds unless it’s a life or death issue.

    “Well, thanks for the free advice, doc.”

    “What do you do for a living?” he asks. I know Gabrielle said he works in internal medicine (What the hell is internal medicine,