Love & Marriage, Part I

A friend of mine I'll call W, who is sort of an ex, announced his engagement on FB this past week. I am happy for him, I truly am. He had a crush on me way back in my first college days, and we went on one date, but I just could never seem to feel anything for him beyond friendship. Yet, for some reason, his engagement post was like a kick in the gut. I had been riding the high of finishing school, and suddenly I was back to thinking about the past, and the future, and all the paths I might never get to walk down. Paths like marriage. And I realized that, for whatever reason, W's engagement announcement was really, really affecting me. And all this past week I've tried to analyze why.

Perhaps it's because of recent events in my own relationship...

My boyfriend and I have had a tradition of watching the Triple Crown races. We've watched them at the same bar together since long before we were dating. And long before he and I ever met, I was watching those races as a horse-obsessed kid, hoping to see a Triple Crown happen in my lifetime.

Apparently my boyfriend joked to the bartender that he would propose to me if a horse won the Triple Crown. Right after American Pharoah crossed the finish line to become the first Triple Crown winner since 1978, my boyfriend pulled out a giant fake ring and put it on my finger. The regulars at the bar all thought it was a legitimate proposal, one guy even took a picture, and the bartender paid for our food and beers. Knowing my boyfriend, I knew it was a joke, but he was too embarrassed to fess up after everyone else thought it was real.

But after that day, he started asking me about ring sizes, and what style do I like, etc. And I started panicking. There are some very real things wrong with our relationship. One of them being that he is a workaholic.

He said his workaholic ways would get better if we started dating. They've actually only gotten worse. He lives very near work, and he is the boss's right-hand man, so he is there constantly. He is scheduled to work six days a week, but comes in on the seventh, as well as after hours, to do extra (often unpaid) work. Up until recently he also had a night shift at another job a couple days a week that only ended because the supervisor, who was his friend, left.

He complains that we never get to hang out much, but when we both have time off he never seems able to relax. He's always worrying about something he thinks needs to be done at work and he's often grumpy because of that. Lately I've gotten the impression that he feels hanging out with me is a waste of precious time that he could be spending finishing up his never-ending work projects.

Yet, he still calls to say he misses me and wishes we could hang out more. The words just don't match the actions. (And in case you're wondering, I'm about 99% sure he's not cheating. I'm also 100% sure he's not pulling some fraud scheme at work.) He's just plain a workaholic, and it's driving a wedge in our relationship and our friendship. That, plus a few other issues, is why I freak out at the thought of him proposing for real.

So.....has W's engagement affected me so much because he's happy and in love, while here I sit with a boyfriend who is so close, and yet so far from being marriage material that it frustrates me, and I'm beginning to wonder if it wouldn't be kinder to both of us if he and I broke up?

Or, am I affected because my boyfriend's fake proposal came so close to being real that it feels like I, too, should have been announcing an engagement?

Or is it something else entirely?........