As background: this is from October 2005. I had just arrived in West Africa where I was to remain for 8-9 months. D$ and I had been dating for less than a year and had decided to be in an "open" relationship while I was gone, but he was coming to visit me for two weeks. Since arriving, I had been telling my host family and most friends that D$ was my fiance so it would be slightly less scandalous when he came to stay with me, and I sported a fake engagement band for most of the trip (until I lost it in the ocean. When I may or may not have been swimming with a person-of-sort-of-romantic-interest). I have NO idea what I am referring to here, but probably something that was said in the weekly 20-minute phone call that constituted all of our non e-mail interaction.
With no further ado, an awkward exerpt of an old email to my now-husband (I was typing on a French keyboard, so forgive the typos, please):
Hey, i'm sorry for teasing you about the ring/engagement thing. Its a weird think to joke about, or at least I think so, so i find myself not really sure what to say. But i dont want you to think that i was being negative for reals, or discouraging or whatever, or too encouraging or any of the above. its just not something I know how to joke about very well, and i dont want to send weird messages. just that i love you tons and plan on doing so for a long time, regardless of jewelry or real/fake engagements.
Heh. I can't believe we were making engagement jokes back then, even though we were fake-engaged for the purposes of seemliness. And I am completely entertained, and sort of horrified, by what a wishy-washy boob I was being. It reminds me of the years after we had moved in together but before we got engaged, when any conversation about the future was hedged in awkward disclaimers.
Oh Lord. This is why being married is so damn wonderful. No more of those freaking awkward disclaimers!
ReplyDeleteThat post reminds me of a conversation between the Boy and me, which happened while we were on holiday in a tiny Caribbean island. We started talking about our future, but it was all, 'if we're still together', and 'maybe, oneday, perhaps' and I think that somewhere in there I might have awkwardly proposed, and been equally awkwardly (but very politely) turned down. Gosh. So exhausting trying to show you're interested in the long-term, but trying not to scare the other person off in case they're not on the same page.
As it turns out, that was the conversation in which we realised that we *were* on the same page, and that the Boy wanted to propose to me himself thankyouverymuch, so I suppose those awkward phases have their useful place, but still...