Marriage-Minded

I didn't propose to anyone on February 29th. In fact, that day was one strange combination of nothingness and stressfulness. It was quite understandable why we typically skip that day. I did very little at work (bordering on nothing, that's how little) and then spent four hours on a bus in a snowstorm. Words like "bah" and "meh" started creeping into my vocabulary. Words that aren't even words. Bah.

And since no handsome stranger sat beside me, there was no proposing. But there's always 2012.

I was heading to Waterloo to go to a wedding. It was a rather lovely simple affair in which the bride and groom were totally themselves. Which, I think, is the trick. Who wants to see plastic people going through the motions? It was our first "house" wedding, meaning the groom came from upstairs. (He had been boarding with my parents for the past two years.) Oddly enough, for all my girlie romantic notions, I don't get jealous or wistful or weepy (unless it's a happy weepy) at weddings. I really do enjoy myself. Perhaps its because I like free food. And because I'm not quite spinsterish. Yet. The only painful moment was a rather dramatic cardigan-selecting affair the night before. I think I need to design clothes, as I don't like any that actually exist on the market. (And no, I didn't wear a cardigan after all). Shoot. Cardigan talk ups the spinster factor. I shall stop now.

My dad sent me this story last week (as a follow-up to my last post). My brother Joel frequently says, "I dare you $5." And then I argue that you can't dare money. It's an ongoing conflict that will never be resolved. But the following bet is also a dare, so I suppose that it is possible in certain circumstances. But not when Joel does it. Because brothers can't be right after I've already decided they're wrong.

An excerpt:

CALGARY - For Amanda Hodson, taking a friend's $40 bet that she couldn't kiss the next stranger to board their bus home from school was a no-brainer. Taking a husband in the deal was a little more unexpected.

Five years after the bet, Amanda and Brendan Miles - who happened to be that next guy to climb aboard the Calgary Transit bus - got married Saturday.

"I walked on the bus, she walked up to me and all of a sudden she was kissing me," Brendan said Saturday after the ceremony. "And I just said, 'this is great!', and so I kissed her back."

Right after snatching the $40 from her friend, Amanda offered to spend some of her winnings by taking Brendan for a coffee. The two found out they had more in common than a surprise smooch.

Love the story. Especially because it wasn't me kissing the stranger. It's almost chick-flick worthy, barely relatable (yet somewhat aspirational) to everyday transit folk who only dream of sitting next to THE ONE as they stare at the floor on their way to work. It wouldn't work if the guy was the kisser. He would be smacked, then sued. The city has made me a cynic.

And on that note, a painfully unromantic marriage proposal from the even-more painful autobiography How to Lose Friends & Alienate People:

"So why d'you want to marry me?"
"For proper, non-cynical reasons."
She stared at me incredulously.
"Thats the most romantic thing I've ever heard," she said.

By the way, he doesn't exactly get a "yes" right away with that one. Actually, he eventually gets an "okay." Which, to him, is the most romantic thing he's ever heard.