I love dating.
I just wanted to put that out there.
I love going home to my own bed at night. I love having my boyfriend come pick me up from my own house. I love having my own bank account. I love getting ready for the day by myself. I love being able to do pretty much anything I want on my own time schedule. I love having a "boyfriend." I love having awkward moments. I love getting excited when I hear my boyfriend's ringtone. I love not having to be an adult. I love having my parents pay my cell phone bill. I love going on dates. I love trying to look cute when I know I'm going to see my boyfriend. I love counting the silly anniversaries (10 months, 20 days, 21 hours, 30 minutes since our first date :] ) I love not taking things so seriously. I love when my boyfriend surprises me with a diet coke or flowers or penguins. I really love just dating.
With everyone around us getting engaged or married or having babies it has really opened my eyes to the fact that I don't want that. Of course, no offense to those of you that are engaged, married or having babies. But I am 100% content with just dating Joe. He makes dating so much fun. And yes, one day I would like to marry him but not for a VERY long time. I always thought I wanted to get married young and granted I will still be young in the next 3 years, but now that I am at this point in my life I could really care less. With how many people have gotten engaged recently it just seems to me like it's not special anymore. To me it's like "another one bites the dust..." haha, just kidding. But I'm not so surprised when I hear people are engaged anymore.
I've always kind of been a critic of love and marriage so this isn't a surprise to me. I had a really hard time believing in love before I met Joe. And then after the first 6 months of our relationship I didn't think things could have gotten much better, we were still in that "honeymoon" stage where everything seems perfect and you are so blinded by your emotions that nothing makes logical sense any more and you act primarily off of your feelings. Now that Joe and I are nearing a year together I can finally see how dangerous that is. How much of it is love and how much of it is infatuation? I can honestly say in my relationship the first 6 months were infatuation. Luckily we made it out alive and after many fights and arguments our blinders finally fell off as we began to grow into love. My favorite thing about dating is that I learn something new about Joe every day. Whether it's a silly thing from his past or that he likes ketchup on scrambled eggs(gross.) And it's taken me almost a year to learn the few things I know about him.
I just don't see the hurry in getting married anytime soon. (I'm sure my parents are grateful for that!) I am so content just dating him. With everything going on lately it has really helped me be grateful for the times that we have together and realize that I have a great BOYFRIEND. Not fiancee, not husband, not baby-daddy. BOYFRIEND, or as i sometimes call him, my manfriend:)
