Spiff and I sat talking at the bar the other night — about marriage, among other things. He and his RHC are coming up on one year of dating, and they’ve naturally talked about the prospects of getting hitched somewhere along the line. He asked if CL and I had talked about it, what I thought of the idea.

And I know I’ve written about it here — somewhere — before, because I distinctly remember contradicting myself at least once or twice. And I’ll probably do so again, right here, right now.

I told Spiff that we had talked about it, but CL had gotten kind of spooked at the thought, and so we let it go (a few times, in fact). Which is fine; she’s a little commitmentphobic, and I knew that from the get-go. I don’t have to have a promise of anything beyond today to be okay with things, though I’m not inherently or bitterly opposed to the idea of marriage. As I mentioned that night, if it happens, it happens; in fact, if it happens to me again, I’d lay odds on it being with CL.

The romantic in me likes the idea of not being married because you’re always sure that the person next to you is there every morning because they choose to be — not out of some social or religious sense of obligation or contract. On the flip side, there are legal benefits to being married — insurance, post-mortem issues, etc. (for some people there are social benefits as well, like living together without being frowned upon; I’ve gotten good at ignoring frowns, so those don’t really enter my head).

What it boils down to, though, is that I’m okay with the idea of being married again, and I’m okay with the idea of not. It sounds fairly nonchalant, perhaps, and maybe I am — but my perspective is that it’s a symbolic thing, marriage, and what that symbol stands for (love, honor, fidelity, etc.) is the important thing to me more than the symbol.

So, me and CL are engaged. And I wonder how long it will take for me to type CM instead.