During my absence I will be featuring a number of guest posters. Today’s a blogger I’ve been reading for longer than I can remember and feel so lucky to have her as a guest! And her post makes me giggle too boot. I love this post and hope you will too!
How To Date A Marine
Some of the top searched keywords for my blog are ‘how to date a marine’ or ‘reasons to date a marine’. This baffles me. Please enlighten me as to why so many people do Google searches for this!
So, how to date a Marine. Are these people wanting to know how to initially get the Marine or do they already have the Marine and don’t know what to do with him now.
So, if you want to meet and then date a Marine, let me tell you how.
Find a base.
Find a bar near base.
Hang out at said bar.
You will meet a Marine.
Couldn’t be more simple.
There are obviously better ways to meet someone, I met my husband at work, but this is the simplest, sure fire way to meet your man.
Now, you have your Marine. If you are now wanting to know how to date him, it’s simple. He is just like any other guy. I don’t think I need to provide details there, you should get it. As far as the Marine Corps side, if he is in a nondeployable unit, then he won’t deploy. Simple as that. He may have a regular day job with the occasional overnight duty or he may work shifts. If he is in a deployable unit, then there is a chance that he will deploy. However, it is not like the movies. These guys normally know months in advance that they will deploy. There are some units that can deploy on short notice (my ex deployed once on 4 days notice), but for the most part, you’ll have tons of advance warning.
Just because a man is in the Marine Corps, it does not mean he is Channing Tatum in Dear John. There are some extremely good guys in the Corps, but there are also extremely good guys who are not in the military at all, just like there are douchebags everywhere. I know there are women out there who want to date a guy in the military. I’m guessing it’s the romance of it all. The tearful partings, extended separations, passionate returns. The drama of life multiplied by a hundred. However! Life is not like An Officer and a Gentleman and you are not Debra Winger! He is not going to swoop in, in uniform no less, and save you from your dreary life!
Yeah, there are definite perks to being a military spouse. Notice I said spouse. Not all perks apply to girlfriends, sorry, but it’s true. The military won’t acknowledge you exist until you are married, no matter how many kids you have together. Back to the perks. A lot of spouses don’t work. That isn’t always because they don’t want to, it just works out that way. We move around a lot and it’s hard to find a good job every time. A lot of us do try though. I always worked until we moved here. Most of my friends work and if they can’t, then they volunteer their time. We get to live in a ton of awesome and not so awesome places. I live on a subtropical island in the Pacific. That would be awesome. We came from small town, middle of nowhere Missouri, which most would call not so awesome. We have free healthcare which means we have babies for free. We DO NOT get paid extra for each kid we have. I can not tell you how many people have asked me that. Deployments suck. There’s no question about that. They can last anywhere from a few months to over a year. Sure, the homecoming is nice, but I bet any wife you ask would rather have her husband home than to be worrying about what could happen. Deployments are also not a get out of jail free card when it comes to cheating. Not all of us cheat. Life is not like Army Wives.
Think about this. Your husband gets orders for, lets say Okinawa. You, your toddler, and husband move across the ocean. You are there a month, trying to find your way around while driving on the wrong side of the road. Oh my gosh! What’s that husband? You are going to mainland Japan for training for a month! Heavens! Whatever shall you do? Your household goods are scheduled to arrive while he is gone. You’ll get to supervise that (and good luck, they might not speak any English) while keeping track of your toddler and then you’ll get to unpack it all. Does this sound like fun yet? You know no one. You have no friends. You are stuck at home with a toddler all day with no one to help you. Good thing this time was only training. Doesn’t sound so fun now, does it?
Ok, so I’m getting totally of topic, but you get. Dating can lead to marriage. I’m just telling you what it’s like.
Please don’t be the military equivalent of a lot lizard. Is there a term for that? Those women who hang around just to snag a military guy? I’m sure there is, but whatever. If you meet a guy you like that happens to be in the military, then fine. Date away. Just be prepared for all the life brings. It comes easy for some women while it breaks others.
