I've Been Engaged 3 Times In A Span Of 5 Years...

**Editors' Note: Guest submitter "A.S." sent us this post about her myriad engagements. Our advice: stop getting engaged and work on the substance abuse problem and/or dating immature guys...Jus'sayin..**


This is it. I will finally sit down and remember as clearly as possible, the whole deal with my 3 past engagements.. I'm not doing this to see where it all went wrong, I'm doing this to jog my memory, cause the rare occasions the subject does come up and I am asked about it... I'm at a loss for words! It's like I have done too many drugs, because my memory seems pretty fucked for being 25. So, this could take a while, but, this is one of those times where insomnia comes in handy.

First Engagement... I was 19, engaged to Todd. Let's see... it was doomed from the beginning. We nearly hooked up while he was still married, he said he "emotionally" blah blah blah'd me ... we were weird, I was really messed up. I think that's one thing he liked about me. I was all crazy masochistic in so many ways, and he was a charmer. Even though I hated but secretly loved it but made sure everyone knew I hated it... (flattery, that is) if that makes any sense. So, after a few months of dating through his separation then divorce to his wife, he asks me to marry him over a small order of french fries and splitting a cup of coffee at 2am in Jake's Diner. We were that broke. Yes, that's right, Jake's Diner. I mean come on! Who doesn't go into Jake's Diner and think, "wow... this place has such a romantic atmosphere, this is where I'm going to ask my girlfriend to marry me"... Just to clarify, Jake's Diner is a truck stop, and an old building on the south end of town, now it's new location isn't too bad... still doesn't seem all that "romantic"... unless, maybe I was a trucker.. We went off and on with one person supporting the other financially because somehow, the two of us couldn't seem to have a job at the same time. Then there was the random accusation of me cheating on him with a friend over the internet.. completely not true, he misunderstood the idea of me ditching my friend(who I was talking to online) when my fiance got home so that I could spend time with said fiance. And then we skip ahead through a lot of senseless fighting and arguing to the point where we break up. The end. Same old break up story like so many others I'm sure... so I'm not even going to go through it because I still have 2 other engagements to cover.

Second engagement... I was 22, Dustin.. I still sometimes have regrets about this one. We were friends first, for quite some time. Sometimes I don't know if I still love him or if it's just that care for a friend... either way, I call it the care for a friend. It's better that way. It really sucks I can't remember how he proposed... but I know it was way better than Jake's Truck stop. I do have to say we had amazing sex... sometimes I still think about it.. he was the first and actually only person I had broken anything with... we broke his bed.. still proud to say that one! I had quite a terrible drinking problem back then though, and I did actually cheat on him. I told him as soon as I got home and still, I don't think I have forgiven myself. He never did anything to harm me, he was even willing to work things out, and I felt too undeserving. And I just told him I couldn't do it. And we tried getting back together a little after that, then we started fighting and now that I look back on it. It was because I was being a drunk and really stupid. We are talking again, it took a couple years, but I never thought I would get a chance to talk to him again. We had a lot of good times while we were dating though. But the past is past... I think the main reason why I can't remember much is because I was drunk/stoned nearly 24/7... and that sucks, I wish I could remember everything.

Third engagement... I was 24... Tim... I know people say never to say you wasted any amount of time of your life as long as you learned something... and I learned a lot. But I feel like I wasted a whole year of my life thinking he was someone he really wasn't. I think the main reason why I actually proposed to him... we had been talking about marriage, so it wasn't a surprise or anything, but our one year anniversary was coming up, and it was the record for both of us, and this is how the proposal went... Me: "Wouldn't it be cool for our one year anniversary, to get married?" Him: "Uhh... huh? Really? Umm.. yeah, I guess".. or something like that, once again, I have a really horrible mostly inaccurate memory. Then a couple weeks after that he kept saying how he wanted to be the one to propose and that's what the guy is supposed to do... so one day leaving the bar drunk.. we go to a hot dog stand on the corner of the street, order, and as we're waiting and stumble into chairs, he stumbles out of it and takes my "promise" ring he got me (I had to give it to him a couple days prior so he would have a ring to propose to me with, and he wanted to surprise me when he proposed... yeah, I was going to be really surprised) and nearly falls on his knee and asks me to marry him. I quickly say yes to get him to get back in his chair and yet, all I can think is, "Really? Drunk? This is his big surprise proposal??? Ugh.." Anyway, he really wasn't ready to be married, and I call bullshit on him actually being in love with me, because the night I saw where his priorities were, was the night our roommate and I had an argument and I was crying (drunkenly as usual) in the room, Tim got home from work, asked what was wrong, I tell him the story and all he says is, "Well, you've been drinking, I'm going to go see what his side of the story is.." Then I get mad at him, I don't care if I was right or wrong, but to think, "Oh, she's mad at me, I should see if I can help.." He decides to avoid everything and play video games with the roommate. And drink the night away as usual. There were so many other things, he wanted to see if we could put an xbox on a registry and kept telling me he didn't know if he was ready to leave behind all the partying and drugs and stuff. Basically, he wasn't ready to grow up. He wanted to make sure he could still have video games. Well, obviously it didn't work out either.

So, there we are. I can't believe I did it. This is all to the best of my poor poor memory, so... yeah. But I did what I could and left out a lot cause, well, it's a lot.