Reply to Men: would you be willing to purchase an engagement ring for a woman?

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Reply to "Men: would you be willing to purchase an engagement ring for a woman?"

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]This OP is cracking me up with all his judgmental smugness.

I'm the PP who suggested that there was a distinction between the kind of cheapness that causes men to resent big-ticket items like engagement rings and frugality, which is a pattern of minimal spending overall. I'm glad you thought it was magical, but you actually could not have me personally pegged more wrong in the rest of your condescending post.

So while we're being judgmental and condescending, here are some questions for you.

Given that you are not interested in the traditional trappings of engagement (aka the ring), do you have similar feelings about the institution of marriage in general? Did you have a marriage ceremony? Do you wear a ring? Do you and your wife have the same last name, and if so, whose name is that? If you have children, whose last name do they have? Who is their primary caregiver?

Since you have openly stated that you enjoy making out with men at parties, why were you interested in marriage at all? What appealed to you about that institution given that it contains many WASP-ish qualities (since that's the worst thing you can come up with to say about anyone)?

Also, how did you find this site, and when did that happen? You seem to have a very skewed perception of the population that lives here, if you think that there are a lot of men of your age (which I'd assume is under 35 based on your derision towards "old" people) in marriages with queer women that also involve kissing men at parties. Some forums obviously skew one way or the other, but I would hazard a guess that outside of the political forum and the explicit forum, the majority of posters are women between 35 and 50 whose straight husbands bought them some form of engagement ring prior to proposing.[/quote]

Answers to your questions:

1. I like the idea of lifelong commitments to a single primary partner, whether we call that marriage or not.

2. Had two marriage ceremonies, one Hindu one Jewish. (we're both atheists, but hey, fun times)

3. We both have wedding rings, they cost about $15 for the sterling silver and then we used a lathe to make them.

4. No kids yet. The plan is that if we have kids, I become a full time househusband. For kids' last names we'd like the idea of hyphenation, except that then if a hyphenated kid marries another hyphenated kid you end up with Spanish-royalty-length names before long. Might go with my last name because easier to pronounce for the widest variety of people, might go with her last name b/c less WASP-y and thus we're doing our part to accelerate the browning of America, might come up with some creative solution we haven't thought of yet.

5. Frankly, it's a little baffling to me that you would associate sexual non-exclusivity with a disinterest in committing romantically to a single partner for life. But like so many of my age cohort, we have a monogam-ish marriage, which works pretty great -- usually involving partners who we're both into, shared between us without either of us having side meetings with that person. Actually had our first three-person Valentine's Day this year, with mind-blowingly good sex. But look, making out with a dude at a party is just making out with a dude at a party, you could go for near-total monogamy and still consider that to be fine.

6. What appeals to me about life partnerships, marriage included, is that I'm a very emotionally generous person who loves very deeply, and finding a person who's absolutely perfect for you and then learning and growing with that person over the decades sounds like the most beautiful and meaningful possible way to live one's life to me. Been married 7 years now and every day is better than the last.

6b. 'WASP-y' is indeed just about the worst thing you can say about someone, but marriage is fun and wonderful enough that even white people can't ruin it.

7. Been on the site for about half a decade now. Like a lot of my age cohort, I think we learned about the site from the hilarious Washington City Paper expose ( http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/articles/40290/dc-mommy-fight-site/full ). Like a lot of us, I grew up on smash-mouth internet forums like 4chan, and so felt right at home with the culture here.[/quote]

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