Recently one of my closest friends got engaged.
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There was no fan fare, no soppy romantic post or 'I said yes' Facebook post with a close up of the ring or a selfie of the couple together.
It was a simple group message via Facebook messenger with a photo of a ring on her finger, where the first question was 'what happened to your middle finger' (it was bandaged) followed by a few jokes and the standard message of congratulations.
If you were to check her Facebook profile, the news of her engagement wouldn't be there either.
When I called her that night to congratulate her, she confided that she wasn't all that excited by her engagement, and why should she be - after all she already lives with her partner.
Her engagement announcement and her sentiments echoed my engagement announcement and feelings 11 months earlier.
In fact my proposal wasn't so much a proposal than an announcement to my family and my partner who had warned me to not make any rash decisions.
You see, late last year my Grandmother was diagnosed with stage 4 pancreatic cancer, so definitely not good news for the family, and in my attempt to boost morale I decided to the best thing to do was get engaged.
My now husband had been patiently waiting for this day to come. He had the ring for four years - waiting for the day I would come around to the idea of marriage. The day came. I told my family we were getting married in my Grandmother's hospital room and that was it. No big moment, no photographers, no romantic declaration of love; just an announcement.
The day my Grandmother passed, I made a small announcement and slipped in the fact that I had gotten engaged. It was a blink and you'll miss it statement. My family and friends knew earlier, we had joked that I had made a mistake; but for everyone else, they only knew once the word was spread.
As for any feelings of joy and excitement? It was bittersweet, it was personal, and the world didn't need to know.
For myself, and for my friend, getting married isn't an achievement. It's the next stage of our lives. We've finally hit that point in our lives that we aren't pandering to the mass consensus or the superficial posts of happiness.
I'm happy for couples who are happy to be engaged. I'm happy for them to share that on social media and hire a photographer to capture the moment. But I'm also happy to keep my private life mostly private, although it's a lot less private than it use to be.