Getting Married: How To Make Peace With The Commitment

I will admit it; my reputation as a party girl precedes me. I am, well, let me rephrase that, I WAS a girl about town. If there was an industry event, I was front and center. New restaurant opening; I was one of the first people there. I even dabbled at promoting events and brunches for the professional, upwardly mobile black bourgeois and I loved every minute of it. I was known in these NYC streets as a very friendly, flirtatious, sociable, kick it girl…who never really settled down.

Don’t get me wrong, I had my fair share of relationships from 2003 until 2009. However, most of them were not serious and/or monogamous. It wasn’t until I started dating my fiancé in 2009 that I realized I previously had a thing for emotionally unavailable men. I mean, the men I dated were all around and present, until I started to inquire about relationship status. They would wine and dine, but had no interest in being in a relationship. So, needless to say, I never really presented a man to the public as my boyfriend for most of my adult life.

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By the time I met and fell in love with my fiancé, I wasn’t frequenting clubs and parties anymore. I was in my thirties and just not interested in long lines and late nights followed by hangover-nursing. A lot of cute guys I once flirted with and dated endlessly didn’t see me around as much, and when they did the flirtation continued. This, of course, was before I got engaged.

Though I was settling into my new life as a perpetual girlfriend and later a fiancé, I never thought the previous cuties I once danced and flirted with would totally peg me as the type who would never get married.

One of my dear friends was at a conference last year and ran into a mutual friend of ours. I have flirted with this guy on numerous occasions and even entertained the idea of having a fling with him YEARS ago, but always talked myself out of it.

While at the conference, she and old flirting buddy sat down for conversation and she mentioned to him that I was engaged. He did not believe it. She later went on to tell me that she said my first name, middle name and last name and it still would not register with him that I was in fact getting married. He stated to her, “I do not believe you. She is not the marrying kind, like she never wants to get married. If she is getting married, then I am getting married…and we know that isn’t happening…”

What the what?!?

Bachelorette To Bride: I Was Never The ‘Marrying Kind,’ But OMG I’m Getting Married!  was originally published on ionehellobeautiful.staging.go.ione.nyc

Upon hearing about this conversation, I immediately felt like Carrie Bradshaw when Big told her the same thing once she got engaged to Aiden. What about me had me pegged as the non-marrying kind?

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Maybe it was my fierce independence or the fact I never was a serial monogamist? Maybe it was because I constantly made fun of the lame types who preferred Netflix over nights out on the town? Maybe it was because I constantly flirted with this guy and he couldn’t fathom my being in a committed relationship before he got a chance to have sex with me?

Who knows?

I later ran into this guy at a reception and jokingly brought up the conversation he had with my friend. We had a couple of chuckles about it and I showed him my engagement ring as proof that, yes, I am getting married. His response, “Oh sh*t, you are really getting married…and all the single men in New York are secretly weeping.”

I chose to take that as a compliment.

About the Author: She holds multiple degrees, is a natural born socialite, a business owner, an extreme exerciser of faith and a realist. After 3 years of dating and a year of being engaged, she is ready to tell the truth about what to expect when you are transitioning from being a single woman with no worries to a future wife. For the sake of these articles, let’s just call her Nina. After all, that was here “Club Name” for over 15 years….so yeah, introducing Nina.

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Bachelorette To Bride: I Was Never The ‘Marrying Kind,’ But OMG I’m Getting Married!  was originally published on ionehellobeautiful.staging.go.ione.nyc