An ordinary couple is all we'll ever be...

If you know me, you won't be surprised to hear that I have always doubted I'd ever get married. And if I did, I would never, ever get down on one knee and all that jazz. No offense to those of you who like that particular ritual - that's your choice, and more power to you. But I find it mildly insulting to both sexes. If I have to make any pretense of begging, then is it even really love anyway? I've always said if the woman in question had a problem with that, then she probably wasn't right for me anyhow.

One out of two ain't bad, in this case anyway.

We haven't set a date and probably won't for a while. Too much is up in the air for both of us these days. But it is at least as official as can be without a date. It happened over coffee at Starbucks a couple of weekends ago. There were no fireworks. (Just what happens with big elaborate proposals in a public place when the answer is "no", anyway? I don't think we want to know!) And, as noted, no getting down on one knee.

Now, what I love about Gyle - and why we got this far in the first place - is that she's fine with that. She wasn't expecting me to beg her for anything, she knew I wouldn't, and she's okay with that.* She's okay with having a fiance whose most romantic gesture is reciting the second verse of Bruce's I Wanna Marry You as one might recite a Shakespeare sonnet**, over a dinner of spaghetti and meatballs (yes, I'd had a couple of beers, courtesy of her flatmate). How could I fail to love that?

I don't really feel any different than I did before that day at Starbucks. And I'm pretty sure that's just the way it's supposed to feel.

*One of her predecessors once got rather upset at me because I'd collected the wrong number of Sweet & Lows for her coffee, even as she failed to notice that I didn't take it in my coffee.
**Another of her predecessors once asked me "Is that Jimmy Buffett, honey?" when I was realy quoting Sylvia Plath. And yeah, I know I'm probably the only person alive who could quote both of them from memory.