reminded me of a similar thing happening to me. During school, I was at a weekend retreat thing organised by the school, together with the grade above us. We were all young adults.

Due to life taking some odd turns, I was a few years older than my classmates and the only one in the group in a long-term relationship. The relationship had been long-distance for years, and I regularly took eight-plus-hour trips to see my partner.

We sat with people from the grade above us for lunch, including a young man I had met for the first time the day before. He was highly religious, which is uncommon for our country. Somehow, the topic of me taking a trip over the next weekend and spending about as much time on a train as with my partner came up, which was absolutely mindboggling to [Young Man], apparently.

And so, the rather invasive questioning began.

Young Man: “Isn’t that a lot of money?”

Young Man: “Isn’t that a lot of stress?”

Young Man: “Why are you in a relationship while in separate parts of the country?”

Young Man: “Why go through all that trouble in general?”

I tried to be gentle in my explanations about, you know, being in love, enjoying spending time with my partner, and how it was worth it even for the short time we’d be together. And then came:

Young Man: “But why go through the work to drive down there? You’re not even married!”

Quite exasperated, since “I love him” was apparently an alien concept to this dude, I said the first thing that came to mind.

Me: “Because I like f****** him. Don’t have to be married for that.”

That shut him up.

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