By Gina Angostura
Columnist

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It’s a wonder anyone ever gets married.

Getting through the starting gate of the first date is almost impossible, let alone crossing the finish line of matrimony.

Of course, I’m assuming getting married is the ultimate goal. So I’m conventional, sue me. I think a gazillion-dollar-a-year bridal industry backs me up here.

Fun fact: The average engagement rings costs the same as the average coffin. There’s some perspective for you. If you think about it, weddings and funerals are very similar. Both often take place in church, and both mark the end of life as we know it. Ha! All of a sudden I’m channeling Henny Youngman.

(Note to readers under 40: Henny Youngman was a comedian before your time whose stock-in-trade was nagging-wife jokes.)

Maybe marriage is too long-range of a goal. Maybe setting a few short-term hurdles to clear along the track would be a better idea, giving all of us relationship runners a sense of accomplishment.

For instance, getting the person you’re dating to put you into their speed dial would be a good start. You know, once you get in, you usually stay in. Phone list maintenance is not on the top of most people’s priority list.

And maybe when that person who decided you two weren’t right together goes to call someone whose name begins with the same letter as yours, he or she will see yours and forget why he or she dumped you and remember some little date detail that makes him or her smile. Like the cute snowball fight, or the adorable tumble you took while roller skating, or sharing that root beer float with two straws. Oh no! Now I’m channeling Marie Osmond. Somebody stop me before we all go into insulin shock.

The next small goal might be getting them to fall into the trap of celebrating a faux anniversary.

“Honey, guess what?”

you say. “It’s been exactly three months since we took our first walk on the beach!”

Then you present him with a tiny bottle of sand you gathered from his socks and the pockets of your shorts, all mingled together, along with a poem that talks about how you can’t tell which is his sand and which is yours, and how your lives are now entwined and you can’t tell where he stops and you begin.

If he doesn’t run like a zebra being chased by a lion across the African plains at that point, you’re golden. Now you can take his hand and sprint toward that tape at the finish line of life. Wait, is that marriage or death?

Well, you could attempt to combine the two concepts like a friend of mine who recently went on a first date in which the highlight was giving her the Heimlich maneuver during dinner.

Would’ve made a great story to tell the grandkids if she’d survived.

Sorry. Joking. She’s fine. The distinction between humor and bad taste is as fine as that between connubial bliss and eternal rest, it seems.

– After sharing her thoughts with readers every week, Gina Angostura would like to hear from you. E-mail questions to editor@yourneighborhoodnews.com, with Single Cynic in the subject line.