is it just me?

One thing in the long list of things I don’t like that girls are supposed to like is listening to the story of how people got engaged. I don’t care. I think it should be personal. And private. After I got engaged everyone asked me. “How did he do it? What did he say – EXACTLY?” I mean, first of all, why do you care? We had a conversation in which we agreed to get married, and now we will get married. Also, some things should be kept to yourself. At least in my opinion. So I never, ever ask anyone. But I end up listening to it because either other women really do want to know, or they feel like they should so they ask.

Anyway, last night through some weird circumstances we ended up eating dinner with a couple of people we kind of know and two of their friends who we had never met. The unknown friends had just gotten engaged. So the girl shows up a little late, and the other woman at the table immediately grabs her had to inspect the ring. This is risky, because you don’t know the caliber of the ring before doing this, so you don’t know if you’re going to be able to ooh and aah. In this case, the ring looked like a picture you would see of a ‘ring’ in a “Learn Spanish Through Pictures Book” (that is, a generic, stick-up engagement ring) which was, to be fair, tiny. Now, I don’t particularly care for big engagement rings, but let’s be honest. In general they are judged on their size. So if yours is tiny, everyone looks at it and feels sorry for you. Unfortunate but true. [Proof of this was someone who looked at my engagement ring, of which I am very fond, at my wedding and said "It looks just like mine - Dave and I were broke when we got engaged too!"] So the girl who has grabbed the hand has to say something so she says something super generic like “oohh…nice” and the guy (feeling compelled to support his buddy in this time of need) says “Nice work, Ned”. Um, yeah. So then they tell the story of getting engaged. It was a perfectly fine, unremarkable story but it is very weird to sit and listen to something like that from someone you don’t even know. And if I don’t know you I DEFINITELY don’t care about how you got engaged. Not at all. So I tried to feign interest but in reality just watched the USC-Texas game behind the girl’s head. Fortunately the odds that I will ever see those people again in my life are very small, so there’s no need to worry about being rude.

Confession

Since it is now January, I have decided to confess something. I am a huge Duke basketball fan. I went to Duke and as a result am a big fan. I only say that it’s a confession because whenver you tell anyone that you like Duke they look at you and say “I HATE Duke”. I think it mostly goes back to some deep-seated (or is it deep-seeded) hatred of Christian Laettner, to which I say: get over it. He’s like 50 now. And sure, J.J. Redick (if that name means nothing to you you might want to stop reading now and come back another day) is kind of a smug bastard, but mostly because he’s good. And the rest of the team, these days, just isn’t that hateable in my opinion. I mean, Sean Dockery? What’s to hate about that guy? Shelden Williams? And you had to love Shane “I won’t use a cliché in an interview for a whole year” Battier. That guy was great. Anyway, now it’s college basketball season and I, for one, could not be happier. I will also cheer for the mighty Badgers who have cracked the top 25. And I will count the days until March Madness which is, hands down, the world’s greatest sporting event. Seven game playoff series are for sissies. I am a bit distressed that the ACC season now involves dopes like VA Tech and Miami, but what can you do. Hopefully kick their asses, that’s what. Anyway, now that we’ve been together for a while I thought that was something you should know about me. Go Devils.