It's pretty much never a nice day for a white wedding...why?

November 10, 2008 2:01 AM

Weddings freak me out, why?

Other people's weddings make me feel icky. Deeply uncomfortable. Think 2 girls 1 cup. Or a really effective horror movie.

I have, in fact, been married myself (quite successfully so far) and it didn't bother me in the least. I did avoid 99% of wedding traditions.

I have only attended one wedding, but I needed to get good and drunk beforehand. (I was getting shaky, sweating, thought I was going to puke, basically going nuts).

Married people don't bother me. The mention of marriage itself, as an institution, doesn't bother me. But just the mention of a wedding sets me off. Writing this question is uncomfortable.

I also hate it when people kiss. Watching people kiss is, to me, like watching people get their fingers hacked off. I am cool with kissing others whom I know well, although it's not my favorite activity.

Any guesses about why I have these reactions? Think they're related? Any suggestions for a cure?

posted by sondrialiac to grab bag (11 comments total)

Here's my take. You hate observing other people's intimacy. It grosses you out. They should have the decency to do that behind closed doors and not force you to watch it.

Many people feel queasy seeing a passionate couple making out on a park bench. "STOP THAT! Don't inflict your slobbering groping exhibitionist lip-locking on me!" You have an extreme version of that.

If I'm right that'd also explain everything else in your query: Why you're happily married, why you hate watching people kiss, why you can tolerate kissing those you know although would prefer not to.
posted by mono blanco at 2:55 AM on November 10, 2008

The attendance of the wedding sounds like a typical social anxiety attack. Symptoms vary from person to person, and even over time almost as if the body is saying "hmm, this isn't working anymore, let's try something new". A doctor can prescribe something like alprazolam that you can take beforehand, instead of self-medicating with alcohol.

The kissing part, well, there's hundreds of named phobias out there, who knows how many that aren't. Kissing is in there, but generally more a fear of kissing. I don't like watching others kiss either, it's an intimate thing, so it's probably not uncommon to not want to be forced to gawk during the ceremony or see them kissing every time you look their way later on.
posted by hungrysquirrels at 4:02 AM on November 10, 2008

This is one of those weird things, like people who are frightened of baked beans or birds. I could wank together a list of plausible-sounding reasons in the wink of an eye, and others will probably do so below, but you'll never really know the answer. You'll mark a 'best answer' which sounds 'right' to you, but your reasons for choosing it will have little or nothing to do with the actual causal chain in question.
How much of a problem is this to you? It sounds quite extreme. If I found that walking around a park in summertime was like walking through a gruesome finger-harvest, I would want to sort it out. Your best bet is to treat it as a phobia, because that's essentially what it is - revulsion, as well as fear, is a common phobic reaction. The current thinking on phobias is that it's best to ignore the rabbit-hole that is trying to explain its genesis, and focus on eliminating the symptom. Try some DIY systematic desensitisation. If that doesn't work, talk to a professional.
When it's gone, you can have fun with the parlour game of explaining how it might have come about.
posted by Acheman at 4:24 AM on November 10, 2008 [6 favorites]

Personally, I can't stand weddings because I can't wrap my head around why anyone would want to spend $10 000 on a single day. Seems like such a waste. I also don't like fretting about what I'm wearing just to make some overly-emotional bride happy. I also don't like buying gifts off registries, because I'd rather give something thoughtful and personal, than a blender or a crock pot.

I think mono blanco has it right though- it sounds like you are squicked out by observing other people's intimacy. It's ok though, I don't think it's that abnormal.
posted by sunshinesky at 7:17 AM on November 10, 2008

Its pretty much impossible to grow up, go through life, etc without developing at least a couple mild phobias and social hang-ups. There's no movie-like cliche that explains all this. I doubt there's a moment in your life where a woman in a wedding dress kicked you and thus you developed this phobia. The process of phobia or fetish development can be completely and 100% arbitrary.

Your question kind of straddles a classic argument in dealing with phobias. Does the patient need some kind of years long talking therapy to potentially find some root cause or do we just accept that these things happen to almost everyone and work on the symptoms?

I think one needs to accept that having some random weirdness in life is common if not a normal part of growing up and becoming an adult. I think the only thing that makes your question odd is that its not a common phobia, but being afraid of harmless spiders or safe air travel is just as odd logically, but socially acceptable.
posted by damn dirty ape at 7:39 AM on November 10, 2008

Or what Acheman said. Sorry, didnt read thread till after posting.
posted by damn dirty ape at 7:40 AM on November 10, 2008

What have your experiences been at non-romantic large social gatherings? If you freak out at bar mitzvah or a large birthday party, that points to a social anxiety thing and the kiss squick is unrelated. If you're fine at large events except weddings then a public intimacy phobia is more likely.

How are you with seeing weddings/kissing onscreen? That might be another clue. Because most people are fine with watching movie kisses, partly because the soundtrack and presentation make it more appealing that that schlurpy couple on the bus who should GET A GODDAMN ROOM ALREADY!

Whether your feelings skew more towards fear, embarrassment or disgust would tell us something too.
posted by the latin mouse at 8:21 AM on November 10, 2008

I used to write for wedding magazines, and it was my least favorite job ever. I'd always felt weirdly unseated at weddings prior to the gig, but after I'd spent 3 months interviewing brides on wedding china and Nordstrom registries, weddings became on par with clitoridectomies in my mind.

First, most weddings hinge on empty ritual. We no longer live in a society that sacrifices animals and pray to rain gods, but we still engage in regimented pageantry that involves a father giving away his daughter to another male caregiver. Don't forget the bridesmaids, something old and something blue, a flower girl and ring boy who echo younger versions of the bride and groom, first dance with the father of the bride, blah blah blah. I think a lot people are uncomfortable witnessing the pomp and circumstance of vacant ritualism when we spend the rest of our lives in raw, extemporaneous reality.

As others stated, the wedding industry is an enormous franchise. It also shamelessly preys on the fears of modern women who are suspect they're giving up a lot of their independence to become wives. I interviewed scores of women who anxiously justified, say, giving up their surnames, or quitting their jobs, and they definitely weren't trying to convince me (I certainly don't care) as much as themselves. I became increasingly suspicious during my interviews that these women turned into stereotypical bridezillas because they hoped that a Fairytale Wedding would guarantee Happily Ever After. This attitude can turn a wedding into something about as authentic and genuine as a Toyotathon.

If you read advertising for any of the industries associated with weddings, be it catering companies, photographers, videographers, ad finitum, they all promise that their services will reinforce the "uniqueness" of the wedding day. The more money you dump on a wedding, the more you can tailor your glorified theme party to reflect the married couple you two are becoming.

Off my soap box, back to you: rationally speaking, you seem like you have difficulty bridging the gap between gesture and emotion. Weddings push the chasm between these two spaces even further by sanitizing love, sex, the potential for divorce, and all the other messy things that go hand in hand with the Real World. Weddings try to crystallize authentic emotions with empty gestures and robotic displays of affection, which maybe confirm your suspicion that everyone is a little deluded and lying to themselves. Perhaps you see it as fakery at its most opulent, and it freaks you out that everyone else is apparently enjoying the open bar while you're mentally scrubbing off a layer of scum from your brain.

Or maybe that's just me.
posted by zoomorphic at 8:30 AM on November 10, 2008 [17 favorites]

If your kiss squick is a phobia, you can be treated for it. I have a phobia (injections/needles) and I had to get hypnotherapy as a condition of hospital admission as a teenager because they were afraid I'd beat up the nurses when they injected me. I've successfully had several surgeries, gotten my ears pierced, and had a three-year course of weekly allergy shots since then. None of that was easy, but I can get the job done when I need it for medical reasons or really, really, really want it, like those ear piercings.

It sounds to me like you're where I am now, which is profoundly uncomfortable and squicked around needles. I suspect I could get more treatment for my problem, but it doesn't come up often enough or in ways that I find socially problematic for me to care. I suggest you talk to a therapist if you want to change how you react.
posted by immlass at 8:33 AM on November 10, 2008

How are you with seeing weddings/kissing onscreen? That might be another clue. Because most people are fine with watching movie kisses, partly because the soundtrack and presentation make it more appealing that that schlurpy couple on the bus who should GET A GODDAMN ROOM ALREADY!

I hate onscreen kisses. I cover my eyes and cringe (yes, it's embarrassing and feels pretentious but I really can't help it). Whereas real life kisses, I can generally cringe and ignore.

I think zoomorphic kinda gets it. It's sort of the anxiety of other people doing something that would really, really embarrass me, or would bother me if my child did it..

I don't think desensitization therapy is worth it. I was hoping for some sort of CBT-like self-talk, which would be easier to achieve if I knew what, exactly, was going on in my head.

Thanks, all.
posted by sondrialiac at 12:12 PM on November 10, 2008

I'd say a therapist is called for. You may have social anxiety, intimacy issues, a clinical neurosis... whatever it is, you have a deep-seated, extreme reaction to things others find innocuous and even pleasant. Your brain is trying to tell you something - find a translator and start trying to communicate with it.
posted by IAmBroom at 2:24 PM on November 10, 2008