That’s probably why we got married relatively quickly after we started dating. Shelley started dating her husband Rick at around the same time I met Sam, but Rick was always squeamish about commitment. Sam was the polar opposite. We quickly fell into an exclusive relationship with an implied date every Saturday night and several weeknights too. While Rick had a freak out when Shelley left a toothbrush at his apartment, Sam—unprompted—cleaned out a drawer for me in his bedroom and made me a copy of his key, and soon after, said, “Wouldn’t it be easier if you just moved in with me?” Shelley and I were both in our late twenties with marriage on our minds, and she was dying of jealousy.

Then when we were living together, he started making comments that began with, “When we’re married.” For example, “When we’re married, we can file our taxes jointly.” Or, “When we’re married, we should get a two-bedroom apartment.” Granted, they weren’t super romantic statements (like, “When we’re married, we should honeymoon in Paris” or “When we’re married, we should buy a villa in Milan”) but there was something sweet about his assumption we’d end up together. Eventually, I started making “When we’re married” statements too.

One day, we were passing a Zales, hand-in-hand, and I commented, “When you propose to me, you better get me a ring from Tiffany’s.”

Sam got this odd look on his face and my heart sank. He’d been making so many statements about marriage, I’d thought it was okay. This was entirely his fault!

Finally, just when I was about to stammer an awkward apology, he leaned over and murmured in my ear, “And what if I got it from Kay’s?”

I frowned at him. “Huh?”

That’s when he reached into his pocket and pulled out the little blue box. My mouth fell open. We’d only been dating a year and a half, and even though we were living together, I hadn’t expected this. “Oh,” I breathed. “I didn’t expect…”

He blinked at me. “Well, I love you. Why wait?”

Why, indeed.

“Hang on, let me get down on one knee,” he said. And then he did, like he was following some proper procedure for proposing to one’s girlfriend that he read in the relationship manual. He opened up the blue box and the ring was… well, I’m not going to lie. It was tiny. Sam had only recently finished his doctorate and wasn’t making the big bucks in his postdoc program. But still. It was perfect. “Will you marry me, Abby?”

I said no.