My wedding ring and I have a strange relationship. When I’m at home, I often pay it no attention, abandoning it on a random shelf as soon as I walk in the door. It never sleeps with me or sees me naked. I won’t let it eat at the dinner table and it certainly never gets to hang out during sex.
However when it’s time to leave the house and go out in public, I am absolutely lost without it. On those days where I cannot remember which one of five random shelves has been graced with my white-gold, sad excuse for bling band, I find myself sometimes hiding my ring finger when surrounded by strangers, lest someone see me as not married or worse … with a wedding ring tan line (a sure sign of cheating, some would say).
My relationship with Ringy started out pretty rocky in the early days. I really resisted having to hook up with a wedding ring for a few reasons. First, I really didn’t think that having one was necessary to be married. It’s like I was ok with actually getting married, but still an activist against all of the traditions that came along with it. Second, we were poor. Spending money on a piece of jewelery that I assumed I would inevitably lose seemed like a complete waste of good resources. So Steph and I did our very best to get the almost cheapest rings we could find.
We spent $150 on a simple white-gold band for me. A figure that we decided was ok to have to spend again should we have to replace it. (so far, we haven’t.) And somehow, seemingly against my will, Ringy and I are stuck together.
When I’m out dancing or looking at cute boys – and girls – I can’t not wear the damn thing. If I’m in one of those moods where all I want to do is make out with a stranger or maybe more, there’s something that makes me feel uncomfortable not wearing that identifier. When I sometimes take it off and put it on my necklace I feel amazingly cheeky, like a nine year old boy who’s just found his first Playboy magazine. Those casual hook ups I sometimes want would likely be much easier if I didn’t have the strong desire to point out “Hey! I’m married! I’m ALSO non-monogamous! Hope you’re super cooooool with that!” from the get-go. In fact, maybe there actually would BE some casual hook ups because I would likely be more relaxed about the whole situation.
(As a side note; lately there have been a severe lack of casual or serious hook-ups. 2011 has been a very boring, yet interesting, yet tragic year in my non-monogamous life, but that’s for another blog post … or auto-biography.)
Good ol’ Ringy here holds a sick power over me. I would love to chalk it up to sweet sentimentality and something along the lines of; I just have to make sure I’m always wearing my ring because it shows how committed I am to my husband and how I love him more than life itself and we will always be together and it is a symbol of our love and affect …
barf.
Not that I don’t adore Steph. Not that I’m not completely committed to him, but if I dig deeper into my relationship with Ringy, I highly suspect that we will find insecurities ruling this twisted relationship. For some strange reason, our formative years can often have more of a hold over us than recent times – perhaps because we haven’t lived as long then, so teenage angst takes up a much larger percentage of our overall life then vs. now – Anyway. In MY formative years I was never the girl in a relationship. Boys didn’t want to kiss me, or maybe they did and I didn’t notice. Without getting into the whole “poor me” routine, I was a bit of a tragic, single, third wheel, fat kid for a long time and that persona has stuck with me, albeit under the surface, for years.
I never grew up caring about getting married one day but now that I am? I have to make sure that when I’m out in public my persona is that of married woman. Like I’ve succeeded at relationships. “Ta da, look at me! You all thought I was a looooser, but Ringy and I are joined at the hip now, bitches!”
I suspect part of it is that I find it more amusing to tell people I’m in an open relationship AFTER they find out I’m married because they sometimes squirm more and boy, I love a good squirm. Maybe it is simply insecurities that make me cling to that ring, and even buy fakees to store in the car in case I do forget ol’ Ringy in the bathroom. I don’t know, and I suppose it doesn’t really matter.
Maybe I just like those times when I’ll catch a guy on the subway looking down my cleavage and I’ll slide my hand slowly in front of my tits, just enough to show off that evil, lovely band and bring a little Catholic guilt to a strangers face.
