This Thanksgiving...

You're likely to find yourself a nice, big family meal tomorrow. You may be the one preparing it - and if so, bless you! If, at that meal, you find yourself sitting with a relative or family friend who is an unmarried adult male (in a relationship or not), chances are that someone at the table, especially a person with a vagina, is going to bring up the fact that the male is unmarried. This will be done in a way to subtly or not-so-subtly pressure that male to marry.

Please do not encourage that pressure. Please consider deflecting the pressure by changing the subject, or outright countering it. If you really want to stir the pot, bring up some marital nightmare someone is going through or just went through - it would be especially... bold? mean? to refer to someone at the table. Even talking about a celebrity will work, but it would probably be best to mention a situation familiar to those at the table, like one involving family friends not present at the meal.

Some men are already on a marriage strike. Don't encourage them to go on a Family Meal strike, too, which is what they should do if they can't get together with their relatives without being hounded about getting married.

Some unmarried men have very good reasons for being unmarried. Would you like them to turn the Thanksgiving meal into a depressing discussion on the state of marriage in Western culture? Probably not.

There's a good message over at The Playful Walrus from last year about this very topic.

It doesn't take maturity to get married. It doesn't take maturity to knock a girl up. It doesn't take maturity to "buy" a home one can't afford – which is what so many people did in recent years with perilous results. It is immature to marry strictly to avoid being alone. It is immature to marry the wrong woman because of desperation or a lack of clarity or because she nagged you into it. It is immature to conceive children when unprepared to deal with them.

Oh... and I'm guessing the childless (especially the unmarried) ladies don't want to be reminded about their "ticking clock", either. Talk turkey instead. And football. And Black Friday sales.

Happy Thanksgiving!