Rebecca stops the eye-rolling to rejoice in a pal’s whirlwind romance and proposal

A very dear male friend of mine just got engaged, having been with his girlfriend for only two months. This astounds me. It terrifies me. But once all the negative thoughts subside, once the voice screaming HOW CAN THEY KNOW EACH OTHER?! relaxes, I find the old sentimental in me, swooning and screaming with excitement.

This is what we need more of – absolute surrender, overwhelming love, complete abandon of all negative thoughts.

As a teenager I vaguely believed that this was the way it would always be: you meet, fall in love in a week and he proposes soon after.

Admittedly, I’d spent a large proportion of my childhood playing with Barbie, and although Barbie and Ken were happily married, Ken did occasionally cop off with Barbie’s sister, Cindi. So things were completely imperfect in the wedded hood.

Following this, I spent years watching Sex and the City which somewhat undermined my girlish notions of love and romantic offerings: redefining romantic sentiments as slushy and naïve, and teaching me that we should have multiple partners, and various long-term attachments we can moan about over cocktails with the girls before we finally ‘settle’.

The lead female in the series, Carrie, was at heart an old romantic looking for ‘love, real love – ridiculous, consuming, can’t-live-without-each-other-love’ but it took her well into her mid-30s to finally succumb to it and even then it wasn’t plain sailing.

When Sex and the City finished I was into my 20s having already shirked my way out of two long-term relationships that shepherded me from 16 to 21, with no gap in between. Before I knew it – and after various flings and semi-serious shenanigans – I realised I was in my mid-20s and a big, fat cynic.

Nothing could deny it. Long gone were the days of hopeless abandon. I wasn’t going to let some guy give me a seater on his bike in the dark all the way home again having skipped college that day, in the desperate belief that it would last forever and who needed A-levels anyway? I wasn’t again going to drive from Melbourne to Sydney to spend New Year’s Eve with a guy I’d known for three weeks to have it all end in spectacular style while watching the fireworks over Sydney Harbour Bridge.

I’ve spent the years since these incidents fighting this cynical impulse – having to catch myself when I roll my eyes at a beautiful meeting of minds.

Having to apologise for hinting that I too have a beating and romantic heart beneath this steely surface which can in actual fact do quite a good impression of Marion Dashwood at her very most ridiculous, thank you very much.

So when my best friend told me he was popping the question after two months I said nothing.

The only impulse I felt were nerves that she might have – like me – been hardened and made cynical over the years and would deny him.

Instead, I left my cynicism at the door and got excited for them.

Because sometimes – sometimes – you can be lucky enough to just KNOW.

Here’s to love. And its beautiful, reckless, consuming abandon.