Dear Diary
I’ve had some time to think…..which, as you’ve already bore witness to, can be a dangerous thing. But I feel that the plan that I’ve come up with is sensible and fair. I need a solid strategy and clear deadlines with Karate Kid so that I don’t end up caught in one of those black-hole vortex relationships that never seem to progress.
There are some milestones that need to be met within a timely fashion, as, let’s face it, I’m not getting any younger:
- He needs to willingly introduce me to his family within the next 3 to 6 months. I cannot persuade him to do this – it must be organic and purely his idea without any prompting on my part.
- He needs to discuss proposing/marriage with me within the next 6 to 12 months.
- He needs to propose within the next 12 to 15 months.
That’s pretty much it. I think up to 15 months of my prime is a generous enough sacrifice toward something that may or may not work out in my favour. The timelines may seem short, but they are sufficient in order to make an informed choice of if you want to spend the rest of your life with someone or not. I’m not saying that I’d rush into marriage. No, no, no, nothing of the sort. Marriage could happen after one to two years of engagement and maybe a period of living together.
I am undecided if I want to share with Karate Kid the one year deadline for proposal….it is an intense topic which may scare him away….but we are adults and things should be moving in that direction. I’m in two minds as I want to know that it is his idea and desire to be with me for the rest of our lives, not because I gave him an ultimatum. But, Karate Kid moves at the pace of a sloth, so it may be only fair to give him a heads up early on so that he knows that he has a deadline…..but then I’d feel that it was me that artificially created the proposal and my pride wouldn’t like that at all. I might take a survey of my married friends to find out what timelines they gave to their future husbands, if any, and if they were silent deadlines or negotiated.
So far, I think the biggest issue Karate Kid and I have is poor communication. I am partially responsible for this, but it’s a deliberate tactic as he needs to learn how to organise things in advance. He sent me an ambiguous content-barren message on Monday evening. I figured that it was his roundabout and convoluted way of seeing if I was free on the Tuesday evening. I didn’t have the energy to banter nonsense so went to bed….he then sent a message at midnight saying that he’d call in the morning (this translated to ‘I know that I’m in trouble so I want to talk about this before you banish me from your life again’).
I replied on Tuesday morning to say that everything was fine. The cheeky so-and-so then sent a message at lunch saying that if everything was fine that he didn’t need to visit me that night…..not impressed at all. After work I decided to visit my friend who had just had the baby whilst she still had help at the hospital – I knew once she got home she’d likely have no time or energy as she’d be doing everything herself. Having no idea if Karate Kid would want to see me that night, I decided to be the bigger person and initiate a text to him to tell him that I was visiting my friend that night. He texted me to ask me to call him when I was done to see where he was at and if there was time to see each other.
After visiting my friend, I called Karate Kid. He said that he’d come to meet me in the city. I told him where I had parked and said that I’d wait somewhere safe. It took him 45 minutes to get to me. Thankfully, I was clever enough to find something to eat for dinner whilst waiting. When he eventually arrived, he sent a text to ask me where I was….this is when he should have just called me. Instead, he continued to text and so, took a long time to find my location. He was rather irritated when he finally found me in my safe, well-lit public area. He had already eaten (again, I was happy with my decision to find food earlier). Another reason why he was irritated was because he thought I was waiting for him in my car. He’d parked his car close by and had sneaked up behind my car to scare me….but I wasn’t inside, ha!
We walked around a nice part of the city for an hour or so. We also played on an epic children’s playground with other young adults. In the day it is overrun with children. At night, the playground is overrun by adults so it seems. After playing, I told Karate Kid that I needed to leave by 10PM so that I could fill a prescription for my contraceptive injection due the next day. He cut short his plan of us going further into the city and we only went as far as a footbridge close by – he wasn’t going to jeopardise delaying my injection.
He didn’t mention anything about holidaying together which disappointed me. I don’t understand why he’d ask so much about my upcoming holiday if he didn’t want to fit in somehow. To be honest, I’m rather embarrassed to have given him all the information so quickly in hope that he’d want to do something together. I’m sure that he knew what I was thinking. Now, to play it cool, I’d rather book up my holiday time so that there isn’t any opportunity left for him. Sayonara Karate Kid, Anastasia will be disappearing for those three weeks.
Karate Kid said that next week there is another pub choir on. He said that this time he will invite more people to join us. My heart broke a little bit because it meant that it’d no longer be our thing. I don’t really want to go next week, Diary. I don’t want to stand there and pretend that I’m just his friend in front of his friends. It’s counterproductive me not going, I know, but it hurts more and more each time he denies us.
This weekend I fly to a different city for a friend’s wedding. It should be lots of fun. When Karate Kid and I were walking around the city he said that his friend was having a party on Saturday and asked if I knew them. I said that I didn’t know them. The subject changed for a bit and eventually he brought it up again and paused. I then said that I was busy on the weekend and he seemed offended that I’d left him hanging when he had ‘asked me’ (without actually asking me) to go to his friend’s party with him – it then dawned on me how indirect Karate Kid was with his invitations. For this, I’m not being the bigger person as I thought I understood his indirect invitation to holiday together ….but I was embarrassingly wrong. I don’t to intend on assume anything again for the sake of my pride – he needs to learn how to deliver an invitation.
Diary, do you think maybe it is worth me keeping my options open for a bit longer? Just to have that added perspective so not to get lost completely in Karate Kid’s labyrinth…
Anastasia
The Contemporary Princess 