Okay, so it wasn’t exactly the wedding I fantasised about as a little girl.

There was the obvious lack of a groom, for one. Or my decision not to wear white. I didn’t arrive on a pony, as I was once adamant I was going to do, nor did I get married in some fairytale castle. And all of that was fine: I was more than happy with the choices I’d made.


So that part wasn’t the problem.


Mark, as it turns out, is an asshole when he’s been drinking. I only caught the gist of the argument: something to do with Hazel being financially irresponsible, how we should be buying a house rather than “wasting money on parties”.


Like it’s any of his damn business.

But thank goodness for Charlotte. The sweet, shy girl I met in college is all grown up and standing up to people.


She was very polite about it, very calm, but she clearly wasn’t going to let Mark get away with what he’d done. She made it clear that he’d been unacceptably rude, told him that he’d had too much nectar, and sent him on home with orders to sleep it off.


Hazel was a bit more subdued after that. But we were both fairly determined that my new brother-in-law wasn’t going to spoil our special day. We managed to get back into the swing of things after a while, and ultimately it was a pretty great party.


So Mark’s behaviour, while inconsiderate, wasn’t really the problem either. It was a blip, sure, but what’s an hour or two of discomfort compared to the rest of our lives?

No, the problem is that “getting married” thing I mentioned earlier. You see, we didn’t.

Oh sure, we both thought of it as a wedding. But the laws of SimNation? Not so much. Officially, we “formed a joined union” – same commitment, fewer rights. That’s all we’re allowed, and it grates.

And I know what you’re thinking. Shouldn’t we be grateful for what we’ve got? After all, the generation before us didn’t even have this option: moving in together was the strongest commitment sims like us could make. And for the generation before them, even that was forbidden; their relationships a criminal offence. But it’s hard to feel gratitude when I can see how much more the sims in RedCity get. I met the team they sent over to discuss trade deals. Mikail, one of the negotiators, told me a bit about his husband. They’ve been married, really married, for nearly forty years. So why hasn’t SimNation caught up yet?

“But Maria,” I can hear you saying, “Progress is progress, right? Things have improved for gay sims, and that’s what counts.” And I might agree with you, if things were still improving. But… they’re really not.

In fact, I'm afraid they're getting worse.