A single carrot

"We are not yet getting married." This has been the perennial answer we have been giving to the perennial question we have been getting these days. It doesn't help that we both turned 29 this year and have been going steady for a little over 8 years. It is further aggravated by the fact that our usual weekend activity how consists of attending weddings, baptisms and birthday parties of our friends' kids. It was inevitable. There was simply no way we can avoid answering that all-too-familar question--are we getting married?

Marvin and I practically grew up together. A common friend introduced us when we were barely 16. He was my prom date and I was his. We immediately hit it off as friends throughout college and after 4 years of unrelenting courtship, I finally said yes just before graduation.

We've known each other for more than a decade. I know he's a man of integrity and he sees me as a fighter. I usually speak my mind out while he listens and he usually cooks while I watch. Our taste for food, music and films are not so far apart that deciding on what to do on a typical Friday night was never a big issue.

We may spend another decade of blissful togetherness trying to find the right answer to that badgering query but against the more accepted norms of dating and long-term relationships now, we have decided to instead spend our precious time looking for the right questions to ask.

Why should we get married? Why not now, tomorrow or the next year? We have seen people getting married for all the wrong reasons as well as people taking their vows despite the less-than-ideal set-ups. But we have our personal reasons for not yet getting married (and not living together, too) and we are careful not to turn those reasons into excuses.

For after spending almost half of our lives together, going through the different joys, pains and mistakes of being part of someone else's life, all we feel now is gratitude that we are able to share this not-so-perfect life with the one perfect person.

And so, who knows, we just might get married after writing about this. Until that time comes though, we have decided to offer no excuse for our current, chosen state of singleness.