LOGICAL PROGRESSIONS: Getting Married and Raising Children (James)

"Love's the only label that matters, and it never goes out of style." You'll have to excuse me, I just finished watching the Sex and the City movie for the 20th time this month! >.<

Well, when it comes to love, I believe there are soooo many different levels of intensity. But unfortunately, it's not an exact science. I do NOT believe in love at first sight. Lust, yes. Love, no. Most of the time when I enter a relationship, I'm fully aware that we'll just get what we want out of each other and part ways long before I even start loving him.

I don't really have a strict time-frame for when liking someone turns into loving him, but I'd say, for me, it takes more than three months. Usually, I can tell if I'm falling hard for a guy when I no longer view his flaws or shortcomings as such and start seeing them as powerful turn-ons, unique only to him.

I've gone back and forth on this next issue, but I definitely DO want to get married someday. When I was dealing with my homosexuality in high school, I sunk into a deep depression once I realized that I was never going to have my "Happily Ever After," I was never going to get married or have children, and I was just gonna live and die alone. ...Let's just say I don't feel that way anymore.

I think that marriage is less of a fairytale concept and more of a practical course of action that two committed adults take, not just for love but also for security reasons. Sadly, I definitely have not loved anyone enough to even consider the idea of proposing.

My ideal wedding would be an outlandish outdoor ceremony in a lush location, probably in Australia or Miami or Los Angeles, and it would be EPIC. For songs, I'm partial to one of Britney Spears' old B-sides, "When I Found You." FAB-U-LOUS.

Once again, it's practical for a married couple to have children, so of course, as a Capricorn, I think raising children (2 sounds like a good number) would be part of our obligation as a married couple. Ideally, I would want to pay a surrogate mother, who would only play a minor role in our children's upbringing but wouldn't be completely hidden away.

It is important that my partner want to raise children, because after a certain point, every relationship has to evolve... otherwise, you're just dicking around. But then again, there would be one loophole: nieces, nephews, godchildren, and pets just might fill the void if my partner was totally against us having kids... or if the process became too complicated or expensive.