Getting married has taught me that I'm clearly very self-centred. And I had absolutely no idea. Not because I feel like I have to sacrifice everything that I care about because of my husband. Not because I have to start worrying about someone else's happiness over my own. None of that.
It's because I have spent the last 30 years *not caring* about what other people decide to do about their surnames after they get married. Yup, I'm a self-centred, self-involved, uncaring brat, because it's become abundantly clear that having an opinion on another person's surname is very important.
The prying and the assumptions are not just the usual suspects like, "but what about your children?", and "oh, I suppose you need to keep it the same because of your business". (Funny to think that maybe I don't want to change it just because it's my name, it's quite literally who I am.) On my own wedding night I also heard, "is it because you're a feminist?“, "why are you being so difficult?" and "oh come on, get over yourself".
My personal favourite is when people already know that I've decided not to change it, and they call me by my husband's surname anyway, which is a nice, solid, "I hear you, but I reject you completely".
It's really weird that I didn't know how important it is to have these opinions. Not once in my life have I ever asked someone why they chose to change their surname or made them feel any less for it.
One reason is because I just don't care about what you do with your name (see, self-centred). The other reason is because I always just thought it had absolutely nothing to do with me.
Who knew, I was so very wrong.
