Times were much simpler when I was younger, when my father was afraid I’d become a homosexual.

Whoa, there—I wasn’t exhibiting signs or anything. It’s just that, by age 12, I hadn’t started dating, and when my dad was that age he had already fathered several children.

But, eventually, I did start dating. My life went to Hell in a handbasket shortly thereafter.

Nowadays, my old man pops me on the back whenever I bring a girl home for dinner. It’s my mother who’s worried about me.

She’s afraid I’ll never get married.

It’s like this: my parents were divorced a good long time ago, sometime before the Dawn of Ditka. In those six-plus years, I’ve done my duty as a young American and subjected myself to one disastrous heterosexual experience after another.

The end result is a 21-year-old with offbeat good looks who is cynical before his time.

I jam my hand down my throat every time I see a young couple making ga-ga eyes and goo-goo words at each other, or hear them say those fatal three words to each other (and I don’t mean “Lend Me Money,” although that’s close).

I suppose you’re wondering what brought this about. The answer is simple: I went to a wedding last weekend.

It was one of those deals where you don’t have to know the bride and groom as long as you’re with someone who does. I went with the Mayor’s Daughter because she was the Best Made (a.k.a. the Maid of Honor), and she didn’t want to show up without a date—you have to answer too many questions that way.

So I pieced together some dress-up fashions and went. Part of my duties included sitting at a rehearsal dinner and listening to older people complain about things younger people do. You also get your first glimpse at how well in-laws get along, which is usually good for a couple of laughs.

I drank too much and went to bed too late Friday night to enjoy any part of Saturday. And sitting in a packed church listening to people who can’t sing cementing the wedding vows with renditions of sappy prom songs isn’t my idea of a Cubs’ game anyway.

There was free beer and ham sandwiches at the reception, but they ran out of potato chips. Then there was this DJ who referred to himself as “The Boogie Man.” I came awfully close to killing him.

As the festival continued into prime time and beyond, the Mayor’s Daughter’s Mother came up to me and said, “Don’t ever do this to me. Live in Sin.” My kind of lady.

I somehow managed to have a good time, mainly because—thanks to my mother—I know the words to “La Bamba.” I think the entire hall was amazed with my rendition. Either that or they had indigestion.

And, of course, I got to go home with the Best Made.

It wasn’t all bad. At least—from what I gather—this couple wanted to get married. The last wedding I went to was more along the lines of the shotgun variety—and it was held in the same church my parents tied the doomed knot in 27 years ago.

I’ve since tallied up the number of weddings I’ve been to in my young life and figured out that only one-and-a-half of the 11 couples I’ve seen tie the knot have kept it tied. Is it my fault, or do I keep showing up at pretend weddings?

I look around at the couples who are still together—years past the life expectancy of the American marriage—and I hear the haunting poundings of a piano, and the words to a song I once heard … “I know her dear heart made that promise honestly, but how long can her honor keep her bound to me?”

What can I tell you, Ma? I guess I’m jaded, misguided, disillusioned. It’s not your fault, or dad’s. I know a lot of people my age who feel the same way I do.

They all hope for the day someone comes along to prove them wrong.

But, for now, it’s Friday. I’m off to the fields of Iowa to shoot some birds and clean out my warped brain.