This tastes awful. Here, try it.

Steve sent me an email last week while he was on the road. He's reading a book called ‘Paper Tiger’ about a normal golfer who spends a year golfing full-time to make the PGA tour. He has this to say after dating his girl friend for 8 years, no rock.

There is something about the long-dating couple, close cousin to the long-married-yet-baby-free couple, that invites probing questions as if a couple had found themselves seated at an information booth instead of a dining room table. I’ve had more miserably married people ask me when I was planning on getting married-the “This tastes awful, here, try it,” phenomenon. Children, marriage, I had often thought of them as place people find themselves because there was nowhere more interesting to go, as if the movie they really wanted to see was sold out. And in the theater in which they’ve found themselves, there are plenty of empty seats, and they can’t stop waving to you, asking you to come join them, as if inviting you makes their lot seem a little less ordinary.

...So I'm not the only one who has a version of the "This tastes awful, here, try it,” phenomenon.