Jul 21, 2008

Forget and Forgive

You know those couples who celebrate their relationship almost as often as they sneeze? I'm not just talking about married people. For these folks, nearly anything is a cause for celebration: the anniversary of a first date, a first kiss, a first joint trip to the grocery store. I find it irritating as hell. It's almost as annoying as some of my female friends who refer to their husbands as "my husband" rather than just using his name—as if I won't know whom they're talking about. (Yes, I am guilty of using "The Fiancé" as an alias, but that's for anonymity's sake. You'll never hear me saying that out loud with friends.) Number three on the list of things I will never do as part of a couple: refer to myself and my husband as The So-and-Sos. I have a friend who does this. "The Smiths are taking a nap," I once heard her say before I almost choked.

In addition to the gag-reflex factor, part of the reason I don't like celebrating inconsequential anniversaries is because I'm not very good at remembering them. I don't have a day planner; the calendar on my desk at work is never turned to the correct page; and I write myself notes on scraps of paper that I'll never lay eyes on again. While I'm attached at the hip to my cell phone, I don't use it for anything other than text messaging and the occasional old-fashioned phone call.

All of our friends know how the system works in our relationship: I make the plans; he makes sure we keep them. I may be losing my social-organizer privileges soon, though, since I have a tendency to say yes to everything hastily, without checking with him. That's the kind of thing that flew in the beginning of our relationship, but lately he's been putting his foot down. "You have to stop saying yes to everything," he told me just last week.

Along with keeping tabs on our social calendar, The Fiancé also keeps track of significant dates via the calendar on his cell phone because, unlike me, those dates actually mean something to him. So, despite my long-standing aversion, when the topic of our one-year anniversary came up yesterday—after I'd spent a sleepless weekend with my closest gal pals, in true bachelorette party fashion (more on that to come)—I couldn't wait to let him know I had remembered.

"Happy anniversary!" I said when I got into his waiting car.

"Do you know when the actual day is?" he asked.

"Yep, it's tomorrow," I responded with confidence.

"You're close," he said. "But it was yesterday." Yesterday, as in the night of my bachelorette party. Oops.

There wasn't a hint of letdown in his voice; maybe he was happy I even had the general timeframe right. Sigh. I guess, though, we'll be tying the knot in two months, which will mark a real, true anniversary—one even I should be able to remember. In some ways, it was the perfect ending to a weekend spent laughing with my girlfriends about how clueless I can still be when it comes to relationships. Good thing I still have time to add one item to the wedding registry: a calendar.

Posted at 04:26 PM in Relationships | Permalink

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