Matt and I, we are going to get married!

Now, don’t get too excited. Matt hasn’t asked me yet. However, ages ago we did discuss whether we intend to get married someday. And we do. Proposal was going to be Matt’s thing. Hey, I’m only going to be asked once in a lifetime, so I’m not giving that away to a “negotiated-over-the-kitchen-table” kind of marriage.

In the past few months I really felt well about how we were handling our relationship and I thought I was entitled to start expecting things. I had this dream, for him to ask me on our holiday this July, right on top of one of Norwegian’s most beautiful fjords. But some place else would have been good as well. Or sometime later or even earlier. I knew, I felt, he was going to ask me in the next few months. Our relationship just felt so damn unbelievable right, I knew things could only ever get better. And better. And better. Until death do us part.

Then I made a terrible mistake. On a perfect, comfortable and loving night the question almost slipped out of my mouth. I had nearly actually asked him, Matt, if he would like to marry me. I bit my tongue and instead asked him when the proposal date was approximately due.

“Hmm, I dunno, I’m just waiting for us to get just one level better… So I guess, in a year’s time or so, or two, something like that.”
I have never felt my heart break so neatly into two halves.
“What…? But we are doing so well… And we’ve been together for nearly two years now… What exactly is it you want me to do better?”

And then we slowly slipped into a fight. According to him, I was pressuring him, and under pressure he would never ever ask me. Yet I thought I was just showing my excitement to give him confidence about my answer so he would dare to ask me in the first place.

Of course Matt, or any man, should never pop the question before being a hundred percent sure, before feeling it’s right completely. However, I thought we were there already. I thought we were being the perfect couple. And now it became clear that we weren’t nearly perfect enough. I wasn’t nearly perfect enough. Sadness came over me.

What if things were never to become perfect enough for Matt? What if waiting for another two years wasn’t enough? Would I have to wait forever? No man, in my opinion, is worth waiting for forever if the man is the one causing the delay in the first place. I started considering departing myself from the matter, taking back full control over my life, taking the grief and heartache that would come from leaving Matt for granted.

But first I needed to know more, to know why. Why wasn’t he ready yet?
“Suppose I would have asked you, I mean properly prepared and for real, what would you have said?”
“Uhm…,” a small smile appeared on his face as he looked away to the floor, “I guess I probably would have said ‘yes’…”
“Without regretting so afterwards?”
“Yeah.”
“But then why, I mean, if you would say ‘yes’ to me, then why won’t you ask me the same question?”
Silence…
“Because I don’t feel like I’m good enough for you. You know I don’t feel like a prince on a white horse…”
“What…? Oh, you silly… You know I don’t care for horses… I like my princes on donkeys, haven’t I told you?”
“Yes, but, do you really mean that…?” ask two blue eyes filled with regained hope.

There’s no better way to break the ice than with something special you actually mean. We chatted a bit more, easily rebuilding what we seemed to have lost, and I decided to push my luck.

“Can I ask you something else? Would you actually enjoy asking me? Or does it just scare you?”
“Both, I suppose.”
“Because if you would say ‘yes’ anyway I could always just ask you, if I think you take too long…”
Matt smiles again but then he buries his face in his hands: “No, you can’t do that, my friends, they will laugh at me… My mother… She will say I did it all wrong… No, I have to be the one who proposes… not you…”
“Well, then I can only say you better hurry and push your insecurities aside, because otherwise I’ll become impatient, and who knows when I might just kneel before you…”
“Hahaha,” laughs my happy but warned boyfriend.
“Mission accomplished,” I think secretly.

Now, I’m never really going to ask him of course. It’s just that I want him to feel that spark of excitement I had felt over the past months. But he doesn’t know that. Until he reads this column. So then again, maybe I will…

Column published by Cecile on Monday, April 7th, 2008.

Similar columns

• The Latecomers and the Waiters
• My boyfriend: possessive or not?
• She died inside, he cried outside
• Musings on marriage
• The enemy is called Salary…