unpretentious fun and a buffet of moose stew and bologna sandwiches. I’ll have to keep this in mind next weekend when I have bridal shower part two, hosted by my mother.
Oh my! It just dawned on me that you likely didn’t know Evan and I are engaged. I suppose I should back track a little, since it’s been my experience lately that the first question everyone has for me once they spot my engagement ring is, “How did he propose?”
For a while I made people guess. Ingrid thought it would have involved Dungeons & Dragons, since it’s become a near obsession for me these past couple of years. Some of my fellow Classics prof pals came up with elaborate literary and historical scenarios. One even asked if Evan had rolled himself up in a rug and had himself presented to me as Cleopatra had done when she first met Caesar. You have no idea how glad I am that her guess was far from the mark.
The reality is much less geeky and far more romance movie worthy.
Evan and I weren’t together a year when I started hoping he’d propose. It got to the point that every fancy dinner or weekend away ended with a secret sense of disappointment that he hadn’t popped the question. It was on the drive home from a spectacular weekend at the Heart’s Ease Inn that he sensed my mood for the first time.
“What’s wrong?” he’d said after getting back in the truck from pumping gas.
“Nothing.” It sounded snippier than I’d meant.
“Something is wrong. You’ve been staring out the window looking sad since we left Heart’s Ease.”
“I’m not sad. I’m just—Oh, I’m just being me. You know. Silly thoughts ruining a perfectly wonderful time.”
“What silly thoughts?”
“I don’t want to talk about it.”
“You thought I would propose, didn’t you?”
I hate how he can do that. Somehow he crawls into my mind and pulls out whatever irrational thought is going on in there.
“I can’t help it. Lately, every romantic moment we share makes me think it’s going to happen. And it’s ruining what should be a great time.”
“Let me get this straight,” he said, pulling the car over on the side of the highway. “It’s not just this weekend? This crazy expensive weekend where we ate amazing meals, had some rather inventive sex, and got to hang out and play not one, but four games of Seven Wonders with a bona fide rock star? You’re telling me other, less fantastic moments were ruined for you as well?”
“I don’t mean to. And they’re not ruined. It’s just, I don’t know, I go into the moment feeling like it’s the perfect opportunity for the best proposal story in history, and then when it doesn’t happen, I wonder how we will ever top a more romantic time?”
“Okay. In the interest of not ruining any more vacations, long weekends, dinners or other romantic events in our future, you need to know that I am not going to propose to you during any of these times. When I propose to you, it’s not going to be over a fancy dinner, or while we’re doing other things. My proposal to you won’t be an add-on to something else. It’ll be its own event. So stop trying to anticipate when it will happen and just content yourself with the fact that it will happen. When you’re least likely to expect it.”
He kissed me then, and when he was done, added: “And don’t go spoiling normal moments wondering if I’m going to do it. Put it out of your mind. You know that saying, a watched pot never boils? It’s like that.”
And so I stopped obsessing about when we were going to get engaged. Something in the knowing that he planned on doing it made it easier.
A month after that I went to British Columbia to deliver a paper at a conference on gender in the classical era. This was the first conference I’d gone to in a while that Evan hadn’t come along on. Work had really picked up and he couldn’t get away. (Hurray for all the good St. John’s people looking for energy retrofits.)
I’d promised to drop
Oh my! It just dawned on me that you likely didn’t know Evan and I are engaged. I suppose I should back track a little, since it’s been my experience lately that the first question everyone has for me once they spot my engagement ring is, “How did he propose?”
For a while I made people guess. Ingrid thought it would have involved Dungeons & Dragons, since it’s become a near obsession for me these past couple of years. Some of my fellow Classics prof pals came up with elaborate literary and historical scenarios. One even asked if Evan had rolled himself up in a rug and had himself presented to me as Cleopatra had done when she first met Caesar. You have no idea how glad I am that her guess was far from the mark.
The reality is much less geeky and far more romance movie worthy.
Evan and I weren’t together a year when I started hoping he’d propose. It got to the point that every fancy dinner or weekend away ended with a secret sense of disappointment that he hadn’t popped the question. It was on the drive home from a spectacular weekend at the Heart’s Ease Inn that he sensed my mood for the first time.
“What’s wrong?” he’d said after getting back in the truck from pumping gas.
“Nothing.” It sounded snippier than I’d meant.
“Something is wrong. You’ve been staring out the window looking sad since we left Heart’s Ease.”
“I’m not sad. I’m just—Oh, I’m just being me. You know. Silly thoughts ruining a perfectly wonderful time.”
“What silly thoughts?”
“I don’t want to talk about it.”
“You thought I would propose, didn’t you?”
I hate how he can do that. Somehow he crawls into my mind and pulls out whatever irrational thought is going on in there.
“I can’t help it. Lately, every romantic moment we share makes me think it’s going to happen. And it’s ruining what should be a great time.”
“Let me get this straight,” he said, pulling the car over on the side of the highway. “It’s not just this weekend? This crazy expensive weekend where we ate amazing meals, had some rather inventive sex, and got to hang out and play not one, but four games of Seven Wonders with a bona fide rock star? You’re telling me other, less fantastic moments were ruined for you as well?”
“I don’t mean to. And they’re not ruined. It’s just, I don’t know, I go into the moment feeling like it’s the perfect opportunity for the best proposal story in history, and then when it doesn’t happen, I wonder how we will ever top a more romantic time?”
“Okay. In the interest of not ruining any more vacations, long weekends, dinners or other romantic events in our future, you need to know that I am not going to propose to you during any of these times. When I propose to you, it’s not going to be over a fancy dinner, or while we’re doing other things. My proposal to you won’t be an add-on to something else. It’ll be its own event. So stop trying to anticipate when it will happen and just content yourself with the fact that it will happen. When you’re least likely to expect it.”
He kissed me then, and when he was done, added: “And don’t go spoiling normal moments wondering if I’m going to do it. Put it out of your mind. You know that saying, a watched pot never boils? It’s like that.”
And so I stopped obsessing about when we were going to get engaged. Something in the knowing that he planned on doing it made it easier.
A month after that I went to British Columbia to deliver a paper at a conference on gender in the classical era. This was the first conference I’d gone to in a while that Evan hadn’t come along on. Work had really picked up and he couldn’t get away. (Hurray for all the good St. John’s people looking for energy retrofits.)
I’d promised to drop
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