"Fine, we can get married..."

While most engagement stories have a resemblance to a love story found in a classic movie, our engagement story resembles more of a comedy. The questions of when we would be getting married started for me around the 1.5/2 year mark of our relationship when we moved in together (which by the way happened in May of 2004.) Jason didn’t really start getting the “when are you two going to get married” questions until his sister, Kirsten got married in July of 2006. The subject of marriage had been brought up many times by me, but Jason always found a way to change the subject and make me forget about the topic that I brought up.

Then around Christmas time in 2007, we found out that Kirsten was going to have a baby. It was a secret for a couple months and wasn’t talked about much between Jason and I because we didn’t want to accidentally give the secret away. In March, Jason let me know that Kirsten was going to announce she was pregnant to the family. While this was a very exciting time, I had mixed feelings…most of them being jealousy. Apparently, I was not very good at hiding my feelings as Jason asked me what was wrong with me one day when I came home from work. My response was, “nothing,” but Jason kept asking, as it was obvious that I was upset. Finally, I decided to let Jason in on the crazy emotions that I had at that point. I explained to him that I thought that it sucked that his sister had met somebody, gotten engaged, gotten married, and was now having a baby…all in the time that we had been together and we still were just “boyfriend and girlfriend.” I also told him that I thought that it sucked that when the baby was born, I would just be the baby’s uncle’s girlfriend. (I have never claimed to not be a crazy person!) Jason’s response to my crazy, jealous person rant was, “Fine, we can get married.” What was my response you ask? While I do remember the exact words in his touchingly beautiful “proposal,” I don’t remember my exact words. I do remember that I told him that “Fine, we can get married” is not an acceptable proposal and that I did not want to be telling our children or grandchildren someday the story of how one day he said “Fine, we can get married.” He said that he did not want to steal Kirsten’s pregnancy announcement thunder and that he would think of a better way to ask me in the future.

So about a week or two later, Jason and I had gone to Happy Hour one Friday after work. I had recently found out that Rent was closing on Broadway and decided that while I had seen it multiple times in Minnesota, I had to see it on Broadway before it closed, so I planned a trip to New York for us in May. At Happy Hour, we were discussing the upcoming New York trip and what else we would do while we were there. One thing that Jason wanted to do was visit a comic book store across from the Empire State Building. I am not big into comic books and Jason is not big into visiting tourist traps when on vacation, so he suggested that I visit the Empire State Building while he hung out at the comic book store. The cheese ball romantic in me suggested that instead of going to the Empire State Building by myself, Jason should come with me and propose at the top. After I said this, Jason just sort of looked at me with a look of disgust and annoyance. The look of disgust came from the fact that he threw up a little bit in his mouth because he thinks that proposing at the top of the Empire State Building is cliché and unoriginal. The look of annoyance came from the fact that in his words, “I ruin everything.” Apparently, he had already considered proposing in New York. His best friend from college, Chris McIntyre, had proposed to his wife Anjali while they were in Minnesota and hanging out with Jason, so Jason had thought it would be cool to propose to me while we were in New York and hanging out with them. Too bad I ruined that one by suggesting it myself, that would have been a romantic story…instead I have this one.

Easter in 2008 fell on March 23rd and we spent the day with both of our families. Jason’s mom and dad came over to my family’s Easter celebration at the Swanson’s. While sitting around and talking, my aunt PJ asked if we were ever going to get married. Jason responded by saying that he already asked me and I said no. With mouths open, everyone was staring at me and the room erupted with cries of “WHAT?!?!” I then had to tell the story of how he asked me and I had to explain that I said no because “Fine, we can get married” is an unacceptable proposal.

Tune in next week for another exciting chapter in our epically romantic story of “Fine, we can get married.”