EnGAYged

I don't know that many 23-year-old's that are engaged.  For that matter, I'm not sure I know anyone who's engaged.  Since I'm on this loneliness bender lately, this only serves to make me feel more isolated in some ways.  And yet, I can't imagine my life being any different.  Alix and I knew we were going to spend our lives together almost from the moment we met.  We waited 18 months to get engaged more for the sake of our respective families' sanity and for me to graduate college than for any other reasons.  I don't question our decisions for a moment, but there are times I wonder how being so atypical affects people's perception of me.  After all, it's a lot different to explain to someone that your fiancée is a woman than to say "my girlfriend," a phrase that is generally interpreted correctly in NYC.   Since Alix and I are both super feminine, we get a lot of double-takes when people see us holding hands or kiss in public.  "Coming out" is something I've had to do post-Smith that I never had to do at college, particularly since the realization and acceptance of my sexual orientation all shook down at that very institution.  Even nine months after graduating, I still have mixed feelings about the need to explain my sexual orientation when people notice my engagement ring.  I have been extremely lucky not to have encountered any public defamation for who I am, and that comes from living in places like Northampton and New York.  Someday down the line, I won't be so lucky, and I don't know how I'll react when someone openly criticizes my "lifestyle" to my face.  Will I react in anger?  Will I spout off some hot-blooded articulate reply about the inability of people to tolerate, accept, and acknowledge those that are different from themselves?  Probably not, to be honest.  I've never been good at throwing out the biting remarks when they might be called for.  I stew over them later, my cheeks burning at the embarrassment of my actual response, which was probably to laugh or defer or simply swallow and walk away.

If for nothing else, something about the fear of negative reactions is holding me back from jumping with fervor into plans for our wedding.  It's only a little over a year away and from what I've heard, weddings don't just plan themselves or go off without a hitch.  Alix and I are going to look at a venue this Friday and the thought is more overwhelming than I could have imagined.  It's only the first step in a long line of decisions that will lead up to the big day, when truthfully, all I really want is to actually be married, not to have a wedding.  I want to be able to introduce Alix as my wife, to have kids, and to enter grad school with the joy of knowing I have the most supportive, life-long partner waiting at home for me when I'm done.  The ironic thing is, of course, that Alix and I already are those people for each other.  The title and the public commitment are - albeit, fun - hoops to jump through to get to where we want to be.

There are realities to planning a same-sex wedding that would never occur to most people.  It's important to explain to every single vendor you plan to use that this is a same-sex wedding (as in GAYGAYGAY) just in case they didn't know, so that they can't back out when they realize that "Alix" is not a fancy spelling of "Alexander."  There are states where it's legal, but most where it's not (New York included).  How do you decide on a wedding party when there's no "best man"?  Do we ask both our fathers to walk us each down the aisle?  A million questions, and I don't have the answer to a single one.  All I can hope for is that this venue on Friday is beyond perfect so we can cross one tiny detail off a list that we don't even know how to write.