I Am Stepher

Andy and I have been dating for 4 1/2 years as of yesterday. My birthday also happens to be our half anniversary…not they we celebrate it… I just like to keep track.

As a little background to this post- a memory of mine from 2006. I was a young 22 and had just started working at my current company. A coworker of mine was complaining to a group of girls (myself included) about his girlfriend and her relentless pressure to get engaged. At one point we asked him “how old is she?” he responded “she is 27”.. “eeewwwww” we all shouted. “Imagine being 27 and not married or engaged” we all cried. At the time, nothing seemed worse than being a desperate 27 year old. At the time, I only thought I had until 35 to get all of my living taken care of. (I will blog about this another time).

In the past two weeks, three, count um’ 3 of my good friends have gotten engaged. I am nervous to even write about this for fear of coming across as selfish and not excited for my friends. I am an so so so excited for them all. We have all been in the same boat for the past year wondering when the heck our significant others were going to get their act together and drop the question already.

The funny thing is, one year ago I couldn’t have cared less about getting engaged. I actually thought we should wait a little longer. Not because I am not 100% certain that I want to marry Andy (I absolutely am!), but because I was thinking -whats the rush??

Somehow some way in the past 6 to 12 months I have become completely crazy about getting engaged. From my perspective, I feel like the more people asked why Andy hadn’t asked yet- the more I started to wonder why Andy hadn’t asked yet. This has lead to anger, hostility, debating, venting, etc. to Andy, friends and whomever would listen. As I reflect on this I cannot pinpoint exactly when the happy easy going Stepher turned into the angry wedding obsessed Stepher. I should clarify- I am actually not wedding obsessed. To be honest, I rarely even think about the wedding. The majority of this negative energy goes towards evaluating what is so wrong with me that Andy hasn’t seemed to find the time to ask. Did I say something wrong, am I gaining weight, is he mad at me, is he having second thoughts, does he not like when I wear my hair up, what if I would have made him a better dinner last week, what if I wouldn’t have snapped at him the other day, what if he was going to ask but then he realized that I am a total nagging bi*ch. AHHHH!! Its all so much pressure.

Now back to my friends getting engaged. The nice part about all of this was that we had created a type of support group where we all understood each other. We were different from our married friends and all was ok because we were in this together. The best part was, when two of us “unengaged” were together, we could evenly spread out the “WHEN” questions between us. Now, I am left the last “unengaged” of the group. There will be no one to turn to and roll my eyes when the questions start coming. No one to mention to my grandma when she says “all of your friends are married” and no other relationship to compare ours to when thinking about why it hasn’t happened yet.

I am the last of the unengaged and to top it all off…yesterday I turned 27. “Ewwwww”… I know! After a good cry I realized that 27 is not really that bad. I need to just concentrate on all of the good in our lives…including all of the beautiful weddings i will be going to this year with the person I love most, Andy. I also need to realize that maybe the reason Andy hasn’t popped the question is because he was waiting for 5 minutes to go by without me asking him about it. 🙂

So, this is the last you will hear from me about my possible engagement. Friends, feel free to continue asking newly married friends “when are you having kids?”, Newly engaged friends “when is the wedding?” and Stepher “When are you going to update your blog?”.

That is all!