A.J. joins us from The Guppie Life:

The New York Times magazine wrote an article about gay marriage amongst the twenty-something set.

One thing I’ve noticed in my few years as a gay boy is that millennial gays generally seem to want to get married some day, and they’re confident that it’ll be legal in their lifetimes. They want to have kids, a house in the suburbs, and a Golden Retriever. Maybe a Cocker Spaniel.

Gay boomers have their own established culture. In my experience, they don’t want a wedding, and they don’t want to register at Crate & Barrel. Kids aren’t even a consideration (unless from a prior hetero relationship), and oftentimes partnered gay boomers maintain separate residences.

(This is all highly subjective conjecture, based on the few older couples I know personally and what I read in the gay blogosphere. Please feel free to send counter-examples.)

A few older gay guys I know have derided me for wanting a monogamous marriage to a man. They say only, “You’re young and idealistic. You’ll understand when you’re older.” I think the implication is that these men have some sort of sexual arrangement with third parties.

That kind of argument doesn’t fly with me. I might be young, but I know what I want. After coming out, it didn’t even occur to me that I wouldn’t settle down and get married. I can relate to the desire for stability and legal validation expressed by the men from the NYT article.

After all, gay guys of my generation were raised on headstrong Disney heroines who ended up happily ever after with their princes. Why shouldn’t we expect the same for our own lives? Ariel mournfully singing about not fitting in and wanting something more… that was me, only at eight years old I hadn’t quite realized it yet.

Even so, I’m generally freaked by the idea of marriage, gay or straight, before the age of 30. The kids in the NYT article look like Pod People (or Log Cabin Republicans, whichever is worse). They’re too saccharine, and the photos accompanying the article are deliberately evocative of Leave It to Beaver. They look like they’re trying too hard to impress.

Maybe I’m cynical because I’m a child of divorce. Most of my friends growing up had divorced parents. Every member of my family in my parents’ generation has been divorced at least once, and we even have a family pre-nup.

I might be young and idealistic about gay monogamous marriage… but I am so getting a pre-nup.