Hells yes!

Marriage equality was legalized in New York on Friday night. It seems appropriate to celebrate it during Pride week, one day from the Stonewall anniversary. My grandparents sent me text message updates because they were watching the state senate vote. And now I have the option to be married where I grew up, where my family lives.

Her Ring

Finding Bug's ring was painless. She knew she wanted a channel set diamond band. It works perfectly for her - shiny, pretty, but practical and not too girly.

So I took to the internet to find one I could afford.

source

I got it delivered to the apartment - it's a little terrifying to have something so expensive shipped. But it got to me, and I hid it away while I tried to figure out how to propose.

Chosen Family

I feel like I should explain why I decided to propose. And there's a specific reason that it felt right. 

The scariest thing about Bug was how easy it was to fall in love with her. After a month, I was done for.

But it takes more than love to make a marriage work. So I started asking myself the bigger questions. Do our career goals line up? Do we have similar views on finances? Will she love me even though I’m an intolerable control freak? Can she tolerate my extensive collection of cover songs? Or the way I charge after my goals like a deranged bull?

And every time, the answer was yes. She stayed up late with me at night so that I had company when I was finishing my work. She vacuums when I ask, and doesn’t get mad when I vacuum again right after her. She sings along to songs when I play them on repeat for months at a time. She moves every year so I can be closer to school or work.

No matter what she did, I still didn’t believe that we could actually last long term. And that’s because there’s one big question left on those “life partner” checklists: Do you want to make this person part of your family?

And I didn’t. Families are not supposed to break. Divorce happens, but the general rules of polite society say parents are supposed to pull it together, “for the kids.” Mine didn’t.  The people who were supposed to be there for me, no matter what, hurt me worse than I ever imagined possible –and they did it repeatedly. I ended up angry, jaded, and fiercely independent.  

When I was in high school, I met an amazing group of people. The group started out pretty small, but it kept growing. By the time we were getting ready to leave for college, there were seventeen of us. And there was something about that group of people, and about the fierceness of adolescent friendship, that makes you feel like people really understand and love you for the first time in your life. Some of us had shaky home lives, but most of us really didn’t. A lot of my friends from high school have amazing parents, who were supportive and were only marginally annoyed to have a large group of teenagers in their basements until 4 am, three nights in a row. We’re in our twenties now, and we still do that. And they still don’t get mad. (Thank you, and also, I’m sorry for any strained relationships you may now have with your neighbors).

So the night that I realized I was in love with Bug, I kicked her out of my dorm room and ran straight to the computer. I found a friend online, and I told her I was in love. And then I freaked out. This was not a tender admission, it was not a sweet and adoring gushfest. I panicked. When I finished telling my friend the ways in which this was terrifying and overall the worst thing that could possibly happen, she paused. “Marabear. This actually sounds like a really good thing.”

There’s a tradition in the gay community of developing a “chosen family.” There was a time when very few gay kids could tell their parents that they were gay, and still expect their love and support. For too many kids, that’s still the case. So gay teens and young adults moved away to big cities. When they got there, they found people who were like them, and people who accepted them, and supported them unconditionally. They developed such strong friendships that they realized they had basically remade their family structure. These lifelong friends became their chosen family.

My family certainly didn’t kick me out for being gay. But it was shaky enough that I did start to supplement it with people that I chose to love – and people that loved me. I could make my family look like I wanted it to – use the really good parts that I had, like brothers, grandparents, aunts, uncles – and then add new people as I went. Friends from high school and college, teachers, students – they’re all part of my family now.

Forty-five of the Fifty states in the U.S. won’t recognize Bug and I as being legally married. But I can still ask her to be a part of what I’ve made with the rest of my family, whether they’re blood or chosen. I’m also asking her to start a new family with me. So if she’ll take me, along with all the people I’ve gathered up in the past twenty-two years, I’d like to marry her. 

An Interruption

Reality kind of kicked our proposal plans in their overly optimistic faces.

Before Bug's brother-in-law proposed to her sister, he asked her parents for permission. Everyone hugged and cried and tried not to ruin the surprise while they waited for him to ask. Bug craved the same kind of moment, but there were some problems with it. My dad hasn't been a part of my life since I was 15, and my mother's fiancé, whom no one particularly liked, had just died. I have three brothers who would be good candidates, if Bug's first interaction with my older brother hadn't gone as follows:

We enter my mother's apartment the first weekend my family is meeting Bug. My brother walked in from the laundry room, wearing boxer briefs. Only boxer briefs. 


Brother *glances down*: Ah. Well, try to stay a lesbian. 


So instead of asking my family for permission, Bug decided to just tell her family what the plan was. I'll gloss over the more painful details, but her parents asked her not to propose.  For Bug, this was absolutely game over. She called me immediately after she got of the phone with her family, crying and heartbroken. I was furious, and the more I thought everything through, the angrier I got.

So I decided to do the proposing myself.

The Ring Hunt

About a year and a half after Bug and I started dating, we started talking about getting married. Not in the "lets run to city hall" sense, but in the "I really think this might last" way. I am unreasonably picky, so Bug asked me to come up with some examples of things that I would like.* 

Engagement rings were an entirely new concept to me. I never imagined myself getting married when I was little - pin in on whatever you'd like, be it parent issues, body image trouble, an inability to accept myself as gay - but I just didn't think it would happen. So I was starting from nothing. I was just faintly aware that I wanted something different. At first, I interpreted different as "dripping in diamonds." 

When I showed Bug, she went a little crazy in the eyes and stayed  silent. 

Bug gently suggested that we should go to a store and actually try some things on. I went into the store with a slightly more reasonable idea of what I wanted: 

This second ring was a little closer to reality. But in the store, after I tried it on, it became clear that not every ring suits everyone. I have thicker fingers - three smaller stones in a band made my fingers look even smaller and stockier. Plus, it lacked that little something extra I wanted. 

So we left the store, with a better idea of what we were looking for, but without an actual ring. 

* I might have made this up in my head - it's equally likely that I started looking at rings and foisting them on her when she least suspected it. 

In Which We Finally Kiss

It took weeks of careful plotting on J's part to get either of us to acknowledge that there might be something going on. We were new to actual dating - previous courtships went approximately as follows:

Person One: You're cute.
Person Two: You're hot.
Person One:  Do you wanna go out?
Person Two: Ok.
Persons One and Two: YAAAAY LOVE FOREVER!

 It really didn't help that I liked her - it seemed like a lot to lose if it didn't work out.

Eventually, we actually started texting. And IMing (which was still a thing in 2007). It turned into talking at cafes until they kicked us out. But neither of us could pull the trigger.

One afternoon, Bug invited me back to her room to watch Imagine Me & You. Movies are the ideal college pretext - there's no where to sit in a dorm room, aside from on a bed. "This is it," I thought to myself. As we walked back to her place, I turned bright red, because I was absolutely positive everyone could sense I was walking into my very first college hook up. 

We got to her room, turned on the movie, and sat on the bed. Six inches apart. And we did not move an inch.  I watched very little of the movie, because I was so painfully aware that my little finger was two inches from her leg. 

And then the movie ended. We sat silently, without moving, for about eight years (30 seconds). I counted the afternoon as a bust, brushed myself off, and left. I walked out, and immediately called J. "Ugh, I sat there for two hours, and no one could make a move! What is WRONG WITH US?"

And then J's phone beeped. On the other line: 

"Fuck, J. We sat there for two hours, and I didn't even make a move. I ruined EVERYTHING." 

So J laughed at us. We deserved it. She dispatched my friend Alex to sit with me at the nearest coffee shop and talk me down, and called Bug over for a serious pep talk. One Bug's spirits had been sufficiently raised, J told her where to find me, and Bug wandered over to give things another try. 

Bug: I'd really like to not mess this up. Will you take a walk with me? 

Me: Sure. 

So Bug started speed walking down the street. It was very clear that she did not have any kind of plan -mostly because she turned around and said "No, I do not know where we're going." She darted across the street. It was becoming less clear whether I was supposed to follow her, or if she was running away from me.  I took a chance and followed anyway. 

We walked into a small courtyard on campus. The courtyard was already claimed by a couple who were tenderly mauling each other's faces. This is the point at which I actually started laughing. Bug, still three steps ahead of me, let out an exasperated sigh and stomped through the courtyard to the lower quad. In the middle of the quad, she stopped and turned to face me. And the sprinklers turned on. I stopped trying to repress my laughter, and poor Bug got even more flustered. She stomped her way through the sprinklers to a bench on the other side of the quad, and sat down. I sat next to her. And we both looked straight ahead. I fear this may be the point at which my laughter became cruel. 

To make up for it, I stood up, turned, and took Bug's hand to pull her to her feet. She stepped forward, put her hands on my waist, and I panicked while I tried to figure out where my hands were supposed to go. We kissed. 

And I mean we KISSED. A year long crush, weeks of pent up passion, and a full day of missed attempts came out all at once. First kisses are magical - there should be some way to bottle that stuff. 

By the time we came up for air, we were being congratulated by a charming (inebriated) young man wearing a crown. 

He obviously did not notice my trouble with hand placement.

By the end of the weekend, we were officially dating. 

The Meet Cute

Alternatively: The Ways in Which Meeting My Bug Displays My Social Awkwardness.

My college had a very small gay community. The gay kids all know each other - or at least the cool ones do. My friend J was one such cool kid. She knew all the other gays, and was so fabulous she actually chose her friends from among them, instead of just seeing which ones stuck. She and future Bug became friends, bonded through their mutual love of cigarettes (is this a universal lesbian thing? All the ladies I went to college with smoked).

J and I became very close friends. I spent half of my freshman year pretending I had a very serious future with a girl who was at best mildly interested in me, and the other half of the year up to my neck in a family crisis that led me to apply to transfer to a school much closer to home. I ran into Bug a few times, at slightly larger gatherings (don't think this meant I was cool enough to attend legitimate parties - "slightly larger" was a four person game of Scrabble). I started hoping she'd show up at every small gathering, and developed a subtle but persistent crush.

After all, what's not to love about this:

So my freshman year came and went.  I was the last of my friends to move back into the dorm Sophomore year. So J offered to come help me haul my stuff into my new room. When the car stopped outside the dorm, I saw Bug standing at the side of the road with J. My heart skipped a beat, and I realized I REALLY liked her.

So I told J. Who sneakily told Bug. And then told me that Bug knew, so that I could proceed to ...do nothing at all.