Guys and cats and my partner Pat

I was awakened last night by the itch of a black fly bite. The warmth of my blankets generating the maddening urge to scratch until scratch I did. After leaving enough of my DNA on the bed sheets for a Law and Order crime scene (nothing like overwrought hyperbole with your Cornflakes) I grabbed pen and paper and this is the result.

-----------------------------

It has occurred to me that I am afraid of commitment. As someone who has always been with someone -- with the exception of one decade of celibacy, fodder for another day -- this didn't occur to me until recently. I have always thought that I wanted to be married, but this is not the case. Funny how the obvious can skip by without notice.

Just ask my partner.

We've been engaged for three years. He wanted to get married right away. I said I wanted an outdoor wedding and, since we had just purchased a house, landscaping would have to be done.

"Sometime next year," I said.

When friends and family asked for a date, I stammered so pitifully they've stopped asking.

Last year, my betrothed looked at me, stark realization upon his face and said: "We're no closer to getting married now than we were two years ago."

My shocked and insensitive response was: "You mean you think about that?"

This year, I've stopped wearing my engagement ring. The stone is a little loose. It's safer in the drawer.

I've tried marriage on twice. During the first fiasco, I would have dreams that my fingers were swelling and I had to fight to get the rings off them. In the morning, I'd wake up ringless, and the hunt to locate where I had thrown them would be on. The marriage lasted 11 months. The second for 18. Both were finished by the time I was 26 and I haven't done it since.

I remember one boyfriend who thought that public proposals were really cool. Say over the Videotron at a football game. "Tacky," I said. Truth be told, it wasn't so much the poor taste of such an act, but the idea of my deer-in-the-headlights reaction played for all to see that troubled me.

I've never done the proposal response well. And I've had lots of practice.

I think guys are like cats that way. If you don't like cats just visit someone who has them, the feline will spend the evening shedding on your lap. There could be 20 people in a room calling: "here, kitty, kitty." If I'm there, they don't stand a chance. I'll ignore it from a sincere lack of interest and won't be able to get that damn ball of insolence off me.

Like a guy with a ring.

Even when I was a little girl playing with my dolls, I had a boyfriend while my friends had husbands. (Their most notable choices where either Chip or Robbie from My Three Sons. Hardly a wonder, you might say, that I opted for singledom. And yes, I am that old.)

My father was appalled when my mother replied yes to my question: "Could I have a baby without getting married?"

Today, when I introduce my significant other, I refer to him as my partner, a term he hates. But I don't know what else to call him. "How about your fiance?" he asks. "That sounds so pretentious," I reply. However, since my partner has a gender-neutral name, my reference to him has caused a few to question my sexual inclination. I guess saying "my partner, Pat" will do that. I think this is funny. But I have an odd sense of humour, I've been told. I think people need to lighten up.

Maybe that should be a motto of some sort: Laugh more/Marry less.

I'm lucky my partner Pat is such a patient guy.

Colleen