How To Get Married in 6 Months or Less

Today is my parent’s 43rd wedding anniversary.

Lizard and I will have our 7th wedding anniversary in a month.

After an exhausting search of Wikipedia and Google I’ve learned if I add our respective years of marriage together that means little snippet holds the wisdom of 50 years of wedded bliss and that, mon amie, makes this post golden, I tell you, golden.

Much to my dismay I also discovered that on our own, Lizard and I are traditionally only worth wool and copper this anniversary but my folks are in the Ruby region.

Back to the story.  Both my parents and yours truly met and married our spouses within six months.  (To make things even a little more mind blowing, Lizard’s parents and grandparents as well as my sister and brother-in-law met and married within six months as well.  We all know how to move quickly when we find the one who makes our hearts go pitter-pat.)

In honor of my parents and because I just feel like it, I’ve created a list of the five things you shouldn’t do on a first date unless you want to get married in six months.

(It’s a list as inexplicable as voodoo and as charming as the Easter Bunny.)

Here goes:

1. Catapult dish candies across the living room. When my dad arrived to pick my mom up for their blind date she asked him to wait while she finished getting ready.  In the short moments available to him while he waited the candy dish on the living room table called his name.  He reached for some and in a tragic fumble launched the candy dish across the room where it hit the wall and scattered M&M’s throughout the realm.  My mom arrived in the living room to find my dad on his hands and knees with fistfuls of colorful chocolate.  Great first impression.

2.  Respond to a question about where you went to college with a detailed account of each person you remember with fondness. On our first date that wasn’t a date (we didn’t actually date until we were engaged.  Long story for another time.) I innocently asked Lizard about his college experience.  He responded with extensive details about the lives of each of his friends.  I didn’t have to do anything but say, “Uh-huh.  Really?” for one and a half hours.

3.  Violate the bubble of personal space of your date. After my dad returned the candy dish to the table he and my mom drove to dinner in a Volkswagon Bug.  Just a few weeks before my dad had totalled another bug in a rollover accident.  He walked away unharmed because he was wearing his seatbelt.  My mom didn’t buckle her seat belt when she got in the car (it was 1968, strapping yourself to moving metal as a safety mechanism wasn’t a wide-spread philosophy!) and my dad unthinkingly decided to buckle her in.  With no explanation whatsoever my mom’s date lunged across the car at her and began pawing at her rumpus area.  She found it rather disconcerting while my dad viewed his actions as protective.  This is why Men are from Mars and Women are from Venus.

4.  Launch into a man-hating feminist diatribe. Lizard and I watched the movie Mona Lisa Smile on our first date that was not a date.  During the hour and a half drive home I railed against the sexist mentality of higher education and the men who refused to allow women to excel using their God-given talents both inside – and outside – of the home.  Lizard was mostly silent. I was full of outrage.  For one and a half hours.  It was awkward.

5. Tell your date you’re sure they’d have more fun without you and you want to go home. My mom doesn’t drink alcohol.  When she and my dad met the man who set them up on the blind date they discovered him liquored up in the bar because he’d gotten in a fight with his wife and arrived early.  He suggested they all get a drink before dinner.  And during dinner.  And after dinner.  And then that they go to a new dance club that was all the rage.  My mom looked at my dad and said, “It’s obvious you want a girl who drinks and parties and I’m not the kind of girl.  So please take me home now and you can go out and find a date who suits your interests for the rest of your evening.”  He took her home.  And proposed four weeks later.

(Funny story, my dad recently confessed to my sister that he thinks my mom was on her best behavior during their courtship.  Just imagine their wedded bliss.)

There are my five recommendations for actions to take if you’re trying to get married within six months.  Do you have any stories of dates gone horribly awry that lead to lasting love?

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