Awhile back I wrote this about two of my cousins and their dilemmas with their ladies. However this post is about my cousin and his boyfriend...no...wait..."fiance". No...boyfriend. As it stands right now we're calling him his partner because it encompasses both of those other terms and because this situation has become...complicated. If you use the term "boyfriend" around his partner (let's call him M), M flies off the handle and points out that they are now engaged. If you use the term "fiance" around my cousin (N), N very nervously corrects you and says they're just dating. So why the disconnect? It stems from a drunken, half-assed proposal a week ago. While talking about married names and broken engagements with a group of friends, N chimed in talking about how nothing lasts forever and love is no different so why get married at all. M, who is quite traditional in matters of the heart, jokingly declared that to be the most romantic proposal he'd ever heard and said they should marry this summer. And then N made what he now thinks was a huge mistake in saying something along the lines of, "We should actually do that." Especially because M took that to mean they were engaged now and thus, we all have to censor ourselves depending on which of them we're talking to.
I never thought it was an actual proposal, nor engagement because I know my cousin and I know he's very anti-marriage. He came out six years ago and hadn't really dated any dudes before coming out (though he had dated women). M was his first serious relationship with a guy and it came out of absolutely nowhere. They dated for four years and M would have married him within the first thirty seconds if N had asked. But he never did, he never wanted to talk about marriage at all. M used to say all the time that he thought things would turn around once same sex marriage was legalized in their state but that happened and there was still no ring. So M broke it off and they both moved on. N moved on rather quickly to some rich, older dude and played the role of boy toy for awhile. The guy was nice but it obvious that it wasn't going to work out from very early on, and it didn't. Re-enter M and they start dating again late last year. Then comes the engagement debacle. And now? Who the hell knows. But crazy aunt wants a wedding and/or more babies like yesterday and is now silently pinning her hopes on this "engagement". I wouldn't be surprised if she had two little voodoo dolls in the same drawer as her Rosary so she can will it all to work out.
