There were two things I was looking for in his proposal to me; love and what his intentions were for our future. The first day he said, “I want you to be my girlfriend.” I asked why and he said, “Because I want you. You’re one beautiful girl every man would like to be with.” I said, “Wanting to be with me and me being a beautiful girl aren’t enough reasons to be with someone. There should be a reason more profound than just these.”
He asked, “What’s better than a need to be with someone?”
I liked him too. He had been a friend for a while and I saw through his effort. But I didn’t like his reasons for wanting to be with me so I kept turning him down. I haven’t had a good story when it came to relationships and I didn’t want his love for me to end just like all others who came promising heaven on earth because I’m a beautiful girl.
One day he cornered me and demanded an answer. He said, “It had been months already but you keep asking the same questions. Today I want an answer from you too. Is it that you don’t like me or there’s something I’m not doing right?” I said, “There’s something you’re not saying right. I don’t want to be with a man just because he finds me beautiful. I want substance. I want tangible reasons for loving me. Me being beautiful isn’t good enough.”
He asked me, “So what do I have to tell you before you understand me?” I realized he needed help to figure things out. I said, “I’m going to ask you questions. Be as clear as possible. I want to know your intentions for wanting me and I want to know the future of us if I say yes to you. So, tell me, what do you really want from me? You want me to carry your babies? You want me to be your side chick because your main girlfriend is not around? Or you just want to have fun with me? Whatever it is, say it.”
He laughed. He said, “Side chick? Naaa you’re too good for that. I don’t want you to carry my kids. Yes, I want us to have fun and leave the rest for time to decide.” I asked, “So that’s all you want?” He said, “No, not only that. The rest would be discovered as we move along.” I asked again, “Do you have any intention towards marriage?” He answered, “Nooo, I can’t talk about marriage right at this point. It’s not about marriage. I don’t even know if it will work or it will not work. Let’s leave that one to time. What I want is companionship. I need someone I can be with as a girlfriend, not someone I want to marry.”
I told him, “You see, that’s where the two of us differ. We both want different things. How can we be in love?” I want someone who has intentions for marriage. I want someone who wants more than just sexual satisfaction from me. I want stability because I’m not getting any younger.”
We both couldn’t settle for anything that day. We continued being friends until one day a single misstep landed us into things we both didn’t anticipate. I was with him at his house on his birthday. We had too much to eat and too much to drink. I’m not making excuses but if it wasn’t for the drink I took, what happened that day wouldn’t have happened. I had too much to drink and lost my sense of reasoning so when he started getting touchy with me, I responded. By the time I realized, I was too far to get back to where it all began. That day, I ended up sleeping at his place.
In the morning he asked me, “So who are we now?” I said, “You’ve gotten what you wanted so what next?” He said, “That’s the mistake you’re doing. What I want from you is more than this. Yeah, I talked about your beauty and all, maybe you judged me wrong but it’s a huge factor when it comes to the way I feel about you.” I said, “How about building something for the future? How about that?” He said, “The future will take care of itself. We don’t have to bother a lot about the unknown.”
So, we started a relationship from that day. I said to myself, “People have come with all the good reasons yet we didn’t end up anywhere. Let’s give this one a try.” For the first time in my life, I was in a relationship with someone I didn’t anticipate so much from. I gave it my best shot but still didn’t expect anything from it. Because of that nothing hurt and nothing bothered my heart. When I called at night and it was call-waiting, I didn’t bother. If he went all day without calling me, I didn’t question him. Like he always put it, “The most important thing is for us to talk before the day ends. It’s not how many hours we spend talking.”
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Surprisingly, he never treated me wrong. He never changed. When he wanted to do something that would affect both of us, he asked permission from me. The few times I said no to him, he listened. One day he said, “I like it that you’re not too clingy.” I said in my head, “You don’t know what I can do. It’s all because I don’t expect anything from this. We dated for two years without talking about the future. Entering into our third year, he asked, “You’ve been with me for a while now. Do you think I’m the right guy for you? Looking at all the things we’ve been through up to this point.” I said, “You’ve been a better man. I didn’t think we could survive a year together.”
He said, “We are in our third year. If you’re convinced about this, then why don’t we get married?” I asked, “How about you? Are you convinced about me?” He answered, “I’ve been convinced since day one. I was the one who didn’t know what to do with this but I think I know now.”
June 21st, 2014 was our wedding day. Six years and two kids later, he still doesn’t talk about the future because according to him, “We don’t know if it will work or not work. We only have to do what’s expected of us and let’s allow the future to take care of itself.” I understand him somehow. We could have planned about marriage right from the start and still fail but when we allowed time to be the judge, it turned out that we were good for each other and it was the reason why we got married.
–Edna
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