Engagement?

Because of a recent change in my profile pic, I have had several people ask "Are you engaged?"  So I would like to follow that up with....What does it mean to be engaged?

By society's standards it means that I have dated Rachelle for a period of time and have come to the conclusion that I would like to spend the rest of my life with her.  So I went out and bought a ring and asked her if she would marry me.  If she says yes then great we are engaged, if not I cry myself to sleep.  So the engagement process begins and we set a date for the wedding and start to plan that fiasco.

But as everyone knows I am not a traditionalist by any means.  If anyone knows our story, you know that it is far from ordinary.  So why should our dating/engagement/wedding/marriage be any different.  I have said before that I wouldn't date someone if I couldn't see myself marrying them.  Well, after 7 months I think I know where I stand.

So again, what does it mean to be engaged.  Isn't it at it's basic level, two people who are committed to one another.  Two people who know that they are going to spend the rest of their lives.  If you agree with me on that definition, then I have been "engaged" for a long time.

Rachelle is the woman that I am going to marry.  When will we get married?  God only knows.  It could be next month it could be three years from now.  Neither of us care about a wedding, so more than likely you will get an phone call, email or bulletin post letting you know that we are married.

Hope that this clears things up for everyone.  If not it's because you still want a nice clean label on everthing in life and you need to work past that.