Update Thread and Other Ramblings by BushOklahoma

[Lunar]

In all honesty, I haven't even thought about proposing, yet,

That's good, considering you aren't even calling each other boyfriend/girlfriend yet.

Many, many, normal people, especially for us young folks, date for years without debating about proposing...to be with someone for a few years first minimizes the chance of divorce.  Quick marriages don't often end well sir.

[Lunar]

Marriage should just stay out of all thoughts of a relationship in the 1st year.  You shouldn't even be marveling about how you haven't thought about proposing yet.

[Lunar]

Yeah but our parents were a different generation.

The AVERAGE age for marriage for guys, in the U.S., is about 28 years old, and that's not a statistic that adjusts particularly well to trends of marrying later.  If you meet someone when you're 27, marrying when you're 29 would be completely reasonable and place you well in the mainstream.    

[Lunar]

The plan is to go out to a quick dinner Tuesday night.  I think I'm going to give her the option of a fast-food restaurant or a diner. 

NEITHER OF THOSE OPTIONS  ARE ACCEPTABLE F OR A THIRD DATE

[Lunar]

IHOP for a DATE?

[Lunar]

Smart man. IHOP ain't bad for a second date ... it's relaxed, it can be fun but it's better than fast food, for sure.

Comparing things to fast food for second dates is like comparing things to dumpster diving.  Not fair.

I can just imagine a girl talking about her worst dates with her girlfriends, and fast food, Denny's, and IHOP dates would probably be among them.

I understand not wanting to break the bank, but a mid-level restaurant is not more expensive than IHOP, it's just 10 times classier.

[Lunar]

Maybe I was too hard on it, especially  after the original fast food suggestion...

but still, I'd go for a moderately-priced local restaurant long before IHOP...

[Lunar]

so if we do end up tying the knot, I can help her in the kitchen or even cook her some meals.

may be getting ahead of yourself here again sir,

[Lunar]

Here it goes again.

As I said before, this is not going to be nearly as fast as the Tiffanye saga.  This should be a lot more appealing to the nerves.

Already making your post-marriage food plans when she's only pecked you on your cheek after a date at IHOP exactly taking it slow.

[Lunar]

Do people really formally ask that kind of question? I've never asked a girl to "be my girlfriend" before or experienced it the other way around.

No, and I won't go into detail about how I have done it in the past. Some of it would be rather embarrassing for starters.

When in doubt whip it out?

[Lunar]

  The spaghetti dinner was cancelled so we just ate Mexican food. 

If she doesn't start agreeing to eating healthier (neither of those options count fwiw) I'm going to mark her down as trying to murder you via food within a few months of your wedding so she can make off with your life insurance

[Lunar]

hah, your real life friends are suspecting what your virtual friends are suspecting?

It's alright.  I once suspected this friend of a friend changed his entire religion [from some random Protestant branch to Catholicism] to pursue this girl he liked.  Of course he did this all while he barely knew her so he could join her religious social network [he was Vietnamese so it was less weird in the Bay Area where most Vietnamese are Catholic anyway].

 Hey, I've pretended to like music I didn't like before for the same reasons in the same situation, so no shame in that.  I actually started to like some of that music.

[Lunar]

You know my politics and some of my personal life, but you really don't know me. 

We know of an individual who has rushed two marriage proposals and been burned and is presently rushing a third, thinking of marriage in depth on the 2nd date, and a few weeks in, already planning the wedding date. 

You say we don't know you because we barely know you.  Well, 99.9% it takes more than a few weeks to truly know someone is the person you want to spend the rest of your life with, and you've done this a couple times before...

[Lunar]

If you consider a relationship to be composed of 5 major steps with the first step being meeting each other, the second boyfriend/girlfriend, the third commitment to each other, the fourth engagement, and the fifth marriage, we are at the beginning of stage 3.  We're committed to each other with a tentative date for step 4 and step 5 to happen, but we are not in step 4, because other than the date, we're not going full throttle into engagement and wedding planning, yet.  We still have some of step 2 hanging on, but we're transitioning into step 3 and peering ahead to steps 4 and 5.  As I said earlier, that date we are about to set can easily be adjusted either forward or backward.  We're not locking it down, yet, just a date for us to shoot for.  If we feel we need more time, we will not hesitate to adjust the date back.  If we feel we are ready, we will not hesitate to adjust the date forward some.  We don't want to move it forward too far because we will still want time to plan a good, albeit small, wedding all the while continuing to enjoy each other's company.

If we can boil down getting to the 4th stage of the relationship to getting to 100mph, there's a difference between going 0 to 100mph in a millisecond and 100 seconds...the former  would rip you to shreds.  You've tried the millisecond route twice and had to go to the hospital twice, why not try actually getting to know her more substantively like the rest of us are required to do to know if we want to marry someone else, since you've already tried this path twice before and it hasn't worked.  It's completely illogical and emotionally dangerous to do what keep doing to every woman you date, and, as has been pointed out, cheapening the value of marriage.

[Lunar]

already planning married life, heh

[Lunar]

Great News!!!  She called me this morning and she feels much, much better  We are going to see Alice at 3:00 today in 3D and go to dinner afterwards.  I got smart, too, and bought the movie tickets online so we don't have any of this sold out crap that we ran into last week.

I want to warn you. I saw Alice in IMAX last weekend, and I swear I felt like I was on some sort of hallucinogenic drug. Not a good feeling either.

Reviews were pretty bad too from what I'd heard. Lots of cool special effects, but otherwise an uninteresting attempt to apply the Through the Looking Glass mythology into a Lord of the Rings style battle movie.

Well, we both LOVED Alice!!  Johnny Depp did an outstanding job in the film.  Susan is into alternate fantasy worlds like that and also loves Disney (she wants to go to Disneyland for our honeymoon).

Anyway, all is well with our relationship!!  She started talking a little deeper about the wedding and honeymoon today.  I am going to take her to buy the ring next Saturday and then I'm going to put it on her finger in June.  We're starting to talk about the attendants in the wedding, basically how many bridesmaids/groomsmen.  She's already picked out her matron of honor and I have narrowed by best man down to one with an alternate in mind.

This message about life acceleration is brought to you by:

Toyota....accelerate your life in every way.

We now return to scheduled programming of everyone's favorite TV Show "Oh NO!klahoma."

[Lunar]

Have you talked about how many kids you will have?

[Lunar]

The way we're talking, she's going to be ready for a proposal sooner than she thinks.  The only thing hindering us now is she knows she wants this, but isn't sure she's quite ready for it, yet.  The way she's talking, I think she's almost ready, but just doesn't want to admit it quite yet.  I'm planning a May or June proposal.  I'm leaning more toward mid to late May because I am going to want some news to share when I go on my New Mexico vacation Memorial Day weekend to visit my great aunt and mom's cousins and my second cousins.

How many pets are you thinking about when you two move in together?  One dog one cat?

[Lunar]

Morden, maybe you should create an Intrade page for this. 

[Lunar]

So the wedding date is next April?  lol

Like I said, Toyota approves.

[Lunar]

So the wedding date is next April?  lol

Like I said, Toyota approves.

Yes, we are looking at probably Saturday, April 2, 2011 so it can still be in the Easter season which is 3 weeks later, without intruding too much on Easter.

Not even waiting until late April?  Damn son. 

[Lunar]

faceplant

[Lunar]

Not to mention, he keeps getting into relationship trouble because he goes to fast.  

Albert Einstein once said "The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results

[Lunar]

God I hope she says, yes.

Co-planning your boyfriend's proposal plan so you can say no would an amazingly evil way to break up with somebody.

LOL!!  And, as it stands right now, we are 1 year 90 minutes from our wedding day, which is Saturday, April 2, 2011!!  That could change, but that's where it is right now.

So July 2010 then?

[Lunar]

God I hope she says, yes.

Co-planning your boyfriend's proposal plan so you can say no would an amazingly evil way to break up with somebody.

LOL!!  And, as it stands right now, we are 1 year 90 minutes from our wedding day, which is Saturday, April 2, 2011!!  That could change, but that's where it is right now.

So July 2010 then?

To risk eating my words, we wouldn't be ready by then.  We're thinking definitely a 2011 wedding, or, possibly an Easter 2012 wedding.

Considering your track record in respecting your previous pronouncements....I'm going to hold onto 2010, early 2011 at the earliest.  


But if not, it's good that you'll take the time to know her before you marry her, even if you didn't do that before you bought the ring.

It's also important to remember that your marriage is probably more likely to be successful if you don't have to go into debt/spend too much to make it happen. 

I'd say late this month, actually, if you could pull it off, but weddings take a while to organize