Dear Future Hubby,
Don't screw this up for me
You should probably be informed that I am very superstitious about relationships. Really, when it comes down to it, it just means I’m ridiculously pessimistic about them (despite being a hopeless romantic – I like to blame romantic comedies for that). I have a very hard time believing or trusting that anything good can happen to me relationship-wise. You can all go hate on Double Threat for causing that psychological issue. Go ahead. Go yell at him. I’ll wait.
Sure, every once a while, a guy comes along to prove my entire theory wrong, but every time something does go wrong, I tend to equate it to breaking one of three rules below. I call these the Rules of Relationship Jinxing. If I don’t want to jinx a relationship, I hold out as long as possible before breaking any of the three rules, because in my personal relationship history, I’ve discovered that breaking them just leads to disappointment.
1. Do NOT add a boy to your contacts to early in getting to know him. This is my major jinx rule because inevitably, it won’t work out and you have him sitting in your contacts as a reminder that it didn’t and you’re still single. By just leaving him a number in your text messages and recent call list, he’s a nameless person. I have added several guys to my contacts before I should have and by doing so, I totally jinxed any future chance with them. Case in point? I once added a guy to my contacts who seemed like a sure bet and less than 12 hours later, he texted to say he had to reschedule our date. Yeah. He never reschedule and I immediately took him out of my contacts.
2. Do NOT tell your friends about him. Again, this is just giving the universe a reason to say “fuck you” and screw you over in the relationship department. By telling my friends about a guy, you’re clearly invested in this relationship (or whatever it may be at that point) and you want your friends to be too. But what happens if it doesn’t work out? You not only have to live with the knowledge that if didn’t work out and possibly deal with your friends asking about him, bringing him up, and wondering (just like you are), why the hell you can’t just manage to have a normal relationship.
3. Do NOT tell you family about him. This is the last stronghold of the rules. This is way worse than telling your friends about a potential new guy because if you’re like me and single at 28, you’re already pressured enough by your family as to who you’re dating, when you’re getting married, etc. It’s bad enough that I have my 10 year old sister asking me when I’m getting married so she can be a bridesmaid. but having your parents or other family members ask on a continuous bases? Yeah. Nothing screams Christmas dinner fun more than being asked if I have a “hankering” for any boys. Side note: Don’t be friends with too many family members on Facebook, because then they’ll just ask you if every boy you’re pictured with is your new boyfriend. No, this is not 1955. I can have guys friends.
Get me to feel comfortable breaking one, two or hell, even all three of those rules means I must actually trust you and like you enough to risk being disappointed if and/or when it doesn’t work out. If you want any shot of being future hubby, this quite possibly might be your first test and one of the hardest. I definitely still have guys that I refuse to add to my contacts even after I’ve gone out with them several times.
Consider this your mission. And don’t do anything else to jinx our relationship in the meantime, cause shit, if you’re getting me to break all these rules I have, I don’t even want to know what it’s doing to my relationship karma.
Xo
Your Future Wife
So true! The last guy I dated for any length of time I put in my phone with only his first name, then “(Jane’s friend)” next to it, because I met him at a party at Jane’s house and didn’t know his last name at first. I never did change that; I always felt that taking that out and putting his last name would suggest that I was giving the (non)relationship some kind of permanence in my mind.
Rule Three is a serious thing to live by! I had a conversation with my mom that basically consisted of me saying “stop asking. I’ll let you know if things get serious enough that you need to know about it.” I know she’ll just hop of the phone and tell all of my relatives. No thank you!!