The business of getting engaged AND the elusive Double L

According to Canadian writer Shannon Rupp, engagement rings are barbaric: just a down payment on virgin vagina, a leftover from a time when marriages were business contracts.

She takes particular offence at diamond engagement rings, since the proliferation of diamond as the stone symbolising commitment and love is simply a ploy by the diamond industry to guarantee continued demand in these all-too available “precious” stones.

Well, she’s correct insofar as the engagement ring was used in Roman times to promise ownership, rather than to promise love.

But like many things – toilets for one – we can hopefully presume they’ve evolved somewhat since then.

The mechanics are still the same, however: girl and boy meet, promise to get married, girl wears a ring in order to officially promise this union. Much like the toilet, the engagement ring’s purpose has remained the same, even if we’ve jazzed it up some; made it a little less business, and a lot more bling.

I’m not really comparing engagement rings to toilets but it’s a tad far-fetched to term the whole thing barbaric. It may hark back to a previous meaning it once had but that isn’t (necessarily) what a ring means now.

Anyway, I’m a little sick of the diamond solitaire ring, the style that has been – so we’ve been told –- the only way (daarling!) to engage somebody since the 1950s, thanks in large part to jewellers such as Tiffany & Co’s propaganda. Yes, I know, diamond solitaires can be beautiful. But when you’ve been subtly brainwashed to believe this in order to enhance their sales, it kinda takes the shine off them, doesn’t it?

Ok, ok, what really takes the shine off them is their £41,000 price tag for a two carat Tiffany solitaire – a price I imagine no man would ever fork out for me.

Heck, I wouldn’t fork that out for me. Not that any guy will be buying me, of course – let’s get that straight. And no, these aren’t the rantings of a woman distraught for not having yet acquired an elusive ring – of any kind – on her fourth finger (I don’t think).

Anyway, there’s a dangerous sense nowadays that unless it’s a two carat diamond on a platinum band, then, honey, I ain’t marrying him.

Cue Beyonce waggling her left hand about and dancing like a well-heeled (albeit beautiful) chicken. And we’re right back where we started: men proving their worth by that other W word, wealth. We must be careful not to step too close to the line that declares: I can afford this ring, ergo I can afford you … If, like Sharon Rupp, you really really have a problem with engagement rings, don’t wear one. We’re lucky enough to live in a society that allows you not to wear one. We also live in a society where you can buy male engagement rings for those leap years – and any other time a woman fancies taking the plunge and popping the question herself.

The truth is that women really like rings – in fact, we tend to like jewellery generally, and in most cases, we take what we can get.

Men seem less enthusiastic about wearing it – Kanye West aside – and that’s cool too.

So long as the ring doesn’t bankrupt the buyer, then I really don’t see the problem.

However, a word: ladies, don’t force men to ‘put a ring on it’. They will if and when they want to, and if they don’t want to why would YOU want that?

I want to believe in the elusive Double L

Recently, psychologist Esther Perel gave a talk in which she shared the results from years of research into couples and their (usually) wavering levels of desire.

The important point is the simple question: how the hell do couples sustain desire for one another after months, years or maybe even decades together?

According to Perel, the problem is that loving is seen as a type of owning, whereas desiring is wanting: we – and by we I mean those lucky enough to be in loving relationships – need to reconcile our opposite human needs for security, reliability and permanence afforded by ownership, with those tricky natural desires promised by desire: adventure, novelty and the unknown.

If you can balance those two things in a relationship, the all-knowing psychologist said, you can have both lust and love. Lusty Love: that elusive Double L.

But is it possible to have both the intimacy that comes with love, and the burning desire and surprise that comes with lust? Anyone who’s been in a long-term relationship will know that sometimes, everyday life just ain’t sexy. I’m not even alluding to that pile of washing, or Mr Muscling the bathroom drain together.

Implicit in a loving relationship is the fact that you ‘have’ that person. As Perel asks: can you want something that you already have? Well, the thinking seems to be that if you have prime steak every night, sooner or later you’ll desire a burger, right? Because that’s how we believe we’re built. And I’m sure there’s truth to it – we desire change and newness as much as we hark for security. Indeed, these conflicting needs seem retrospectively to shape the course of our lives: the idea of a travelling gap year may simultaneously terrify and excite us and it depends which side is strongest as to whether you ever ended up on the other side of the world with no return ticket.

Moreover, can you get all the things you need from just one person? No, of course not. But with the right person you get most things from them, if alongside the relationship you have an engaging career or hobby, and a social group you can enjoy both individually and as part of a couple. I hate the idea that partners must retreat to their own corners every other day in order to be happy. Sure, have outside interests and other friends. But the two don’t have to be mutually exclusive – you can mix everything up together or come back from a good day with friends and share with your partner the experiences you had. That’s real intimacy. So no, maybe not everything can be got from one person, but the DL is certainly one of them. Why do I believe this? Because I want – I need – to believe it. Without the belief that loving ‘ownership’ can also provide exciting and novel desire we will truly be left wanting.