And I'm sorry if this comes across as harsh, but I'm not big on tiptoeing around things because feelings might be hurt.
Diamond engagement rings are a balls to the walls, utterly fucking insane, social custom.
I mean have you ever actually thought about it before? Allow me to explain the engagement ring to you in blunt terms:
You are expected to waste thousands and thousands of dollars, money you could use for practical purposes such as living your life, feeding yourself, paying for your childrens education, buying a home to live in with your new spouse, etc, etc. You could even use that money to pay for the wedding, a slightly useless way to burn money in and of itself, but I think there is at least some social value to those types of events. Or you could buy a piece of cut glass for ten bucks and flush the thousands of dollars you were going to spend on a diamond directly down the toilet. But no, you are expected to waste all this money on something that is at the end of the day a SHINY FUCKING ROCK.
That wouldn't be so bad except that we know where diamonds come from don't we. We've all heard of blood diamonds, and if you haven't you need to look it up. Its important to keep in mind that you can get non-blood diamond market diamonds, but really you only have the venders word, and what the hell does the guy behind the counter really know? He's just there to sell you expensive things so he can feed his family as well.
And while its true that perhaps the origin of diamonds wasn't as widely known when this practice was introduced, that doesn't change the reality of where most diamonds came from back in the day before we were aware enough to even think of buying diamonds that only come from non-violent origins. Which, again lets be blunt, a very large percentage of people don't even give a shit about any of that to this day. Give me the sparkly rock, they'lll say, no questions asked. The fact that children were butchered in order to bring them to you is beside the point.
But that's not even the craziest part, it's just the most selfish and destructive one.
No the true insanity is unquestioned social the acceptance of this all.
Let's just cut to the chase and boil it down to the essence:
In order to get married in many parts of the world, the custom is for the man to gift his woman with a diamond engagement ring when he asks the question.
In order to get the woman who LOVES and WANTS to marry him too, you know, MARRY HIM he has to piss away thousands of dollars, that could be vastly better spent on any number of things considering they're about to get married, on a shiny fucking rock of zero value whose origins are directly responsible for the death of countless men and woman and ruined lives around the world.
And why do we do this?
What. The. Fuck.
That's it. That's all. There is absolutely ZERO LEGITIMATE REASON to buy a diamond engagement ring aside from the fact that, even I have to admit, that if you want to marry the woman you love you pretty much HAVE TO. But then that's my point.
How hopelessly fucked up is our society that we have no choice but to accept that? And don't try to tell me that there are plenty of people who get married without engagement rings, because they are far and away the minority (though good for them) and if you choose to take up common sense and say no to diamond engagement rings you'll just fuck yourself over by drastically limiting the number of potential partners you'll even have available, as we all know woman who would refuse to get married without the damn ring.
Right now as I type and still as you read this there are entire generations of children out there growing up under this conception, just like you and I may well have, that THIS IS HOW YOU DO IT. So when they get older and want to start getting married THIS IS HOW THEY'LL GO ABOUT IT. And why wouldn't they? This is the society we force them to grow up into. And the cycle of insanity continues unbroken.
Tell me I'm wrong. Justify it. Tell me how a bit of stone is worth the lives of so many? Tell me why I would ever conceivably need to give a blood soaked trinket to a woman who supposedly loves me, and knows I love her, and wants to spend the rest of her life with me, and have children with me, in order to act upon these feelings and desires? You want to give her an engagement pebble? Be my guest, that wouldn't hurt anyone.
How can people so happily live in a world where such ass backwards insanity is par for the course, or worse, both expected and glorified.
And it will never ever change.
Fuck.
The only thing I want? I want to know how it is all these fucking people are ok with it all.
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