Expert lady asks: Is he ready to get married?

The other day I was in a crappy mood. The E train had all sorts of delays* that made me miss 2 of my other trains, which means that I was getting on the LIRR at the time I'm normally already home. Which meant instead of the lovely grilled chicken Caesar salad I was planning on making, I wanted Chinese food. It's my go-to "I'm in a bad mood and want comfort food" option. On our way back from picking up the food, there's a segment on the radio about "How to tell if he's ready for marriage".

I want to again repeat, I was already in a bad mood. It was subsiding because 1) I was done with the commute and there was Chinese food sitting in the back seat and 2) Cracked apparently knew I was about to have a crappy day so put out a column about things that will restore your faith in humanity that kept me from stabbing anyone on the train. But despite that, I wasn't in a unicorns and rainbows and sunshine place.

Right at the start of this thing I'm annoyed. If he's ready for marriage? Cos the woman just is? That's her natural state of being? The guy needs to be talked into it by the woman. I hate you, lady who came up with this list. So she gives the clues that aren't that interesting and frankly, if you need to be told them, you probably need this expert since one of the tips is "He changes the topic whenever you bring up marriage". But the thing that extra annoyed me, was her closing remarks afterwards.

She said roughly "If you've been together for a year and there's still no talk of marriage then he doesn't want to marry you. After a year, what more is there to learn?"
Boyfriend+ looked at me and started laughing as I let out a string of expletives, because I'm super eloquent when annoyed and tired.

Boyfriend+ and I have been together for almost 8 years and just got engaged a month (or so) ago. Now, I know this is longer than most people so I'm not suggesting EVERYONE needs to do that. But what more is there to learn after 1 year of being with someone? Just one year? I still had loads to learn. And at the 1 year mark we were still in college. I was all kinds of not ready for any sort of marriage then. And I was the one holding things back. When we told my mom about the engagement she hugged Boyfriend+ first. Twice. When I feigned annoyance at this she said "I figured you were the one who was holding out anyway." at which point I had to go "well...yeah..."

Some couples know after a few months that they are not only meant for each other but meant for marriage. Because you need to be ready for both. And sometimes those things don't happen at the same time.  So shut up expert lady.

To everyone that guessed my first wedding post would be a complaint, YOU WIN. You should get a cookie or something. I should also point out that this is my first post cos we haven't actually done anything for the wedding yet. But hopefully I'll have a post about the ring up in a couple weeks! So see, there will be happier posts.

*I get emails, text messages AND follow the subway on Twitter so I can see about these delays. Of course, most of the time I hear about the delays long after I've already gotten on the ill-fated subway car. And I have no service when I'm there so it means after I've already missed all my trains and I come out of the subway do I finally get a bunch of messages about these delays. Which makes me want to throttle the MTA that much more.