“I guess you’ll do.” Are most relationships this…boring? I hope not. But in any case, check out this funny/depressing comic sketch by Cleveland comedian Mike Polk. As an engaged person, none of this resonates with me, aside from the fact that I got engaged on New Years and am getting married in a year and a half. Also, I want several dogs. And M. is from Orlando. Umm, weird. Thankfully, we hate camping. We’re saved! [YouTube via Boinkology]

Do you remember that Sex and the City episode where Samantha’s doctor tells her she might have developed breast cancer because of her “lifestyle choices” (being single and childless). Well, now there’s a study that says happily married adults have lower blood pressure than single people. Don’t take this as an edict to get married, though, because the unhappily married had even worse blood pressure than singles. And if you’re blood pressure’s that much of a problem, have your doc prescribe you something. [Reuters]

A couple who had their first date at a Menards home improvement store in Kearney, NE, got married there on Friday in a kitchen display. Gaylan Whitwer and Francine Brickner-Whitwer remodel homes as a hobby and spend all of their spare time and money at Menards, so they felt it was the perfect place for them to get married. The couple kept the ceremony a secret from family and friends—but a bunch of random people probably walked by as they shopped for pressure-treated pine lumber and the like. [AP]

This week everyone is talking about leap year day and women proposing. The March 10th issue of Us Weekly discusses female celebrities who proposed to their men—though they didn’t necessarily wait for a leap year to do it. Halle Berry proposed to David Justice in 1992. Britney Spears proposed to Kevin Federline in 2004. Pink proposed to Carey Hart in 2005. Are ya seeing a pattern?

Watching an episode of The Moment of Truth is like watching a really brutal slasher movie where there’s a 50/50 shot the super hot hero lives or dies. You really want to look away, especially when it gets bloody, and the payoff is usually a major disappointment, but it’s still totally impossible. Last night’s episode of the game show was an excellent example of this as a marketing concept.  The show’s host says that this episode is so controversial, it almost didn’t air, which is totally TV-speak for, “we couldn’t wait to freaking air it, it is that juicy.” Bleached-blond Lauren is the contestant, and her Mom, Dad, brother, sister, and husband are all in the audience. Lauren, who seems to have some loose morals and an on-the-rocks relationship with her husband of two years, is so determined to win the $500,000 cash prize that she answers truthfully about some of the most TMI questions ever posed on a television show. Was she still in love with an ex-boyfriend on her wedding day? Yes. Does she think she should be married to aforementioned ex-boyfriend instead of her current husband? Yes. Has she had sexual relations with other men while she’s been married? Yes. Does she think she’s a good person? Yes. Oh wait, NO! That one was a lie! You know what that means?! Lauren walks home empty-handed! However, we’re pretty sure divorce papers will be in her grubby paws any day now. [Fox: The Moment of Truth]

There was a new player on the NBA court, but her game isn’t basketball. During halftime at a Rocket’s game, her man got on bended knee to propose. As he tried to score his lady mid-court, even the announcers joked that she just had to say yes while they’re in public and could then change her mind after. But unfortunately, she must not have heard them because she totally blocked his pass.  As she ran off the court to the sound of the stadium booing her, he kissed his beer. Poor guy! Where’s the ref when you need to call a foul?! [You Tube: NBA Marriage Proposal]

Here’s how I thought being engaged would make me feel: OLD. Here’s how being engaged really makes me feel: like I’m in on the funniest inside joke ever. Two of the most opposite people on the planet, at least on the surface, are in it for the long haul. Who would have thunk it?
I’m not going to go into the details of my engagement because I don’t think it matters, and, besides, wouldn’t that be a bit braggy? The truth is, as elated as I am to be taking the next step in my relationship and as spring chicken-like as I still feel, thank God, I wasn’t always so convinced that marriage was for me.

Shamu, the talented killer whale, can stun audiences daily by jumping through mid-air. It’s an impressive show that takes a lot of training. Although most wives aren’t looking for athletic feats from their husbands, author Amy Sutherland was determined to find out if the same techniques they use to make animals jump on command would work on her spouse. After spending a year in animal-trainer school, Ms. Sutherland was ready to try out her tricks. While it may seem like a plot line for a sci-fi villain—a seductive woman trains men to bow to her will—the tips she learned worked like a charm on her partner. As if an obedient husband wasn’t enough of a pat on the back, her article on her experiences, published in The New York Times in 2006, received the most email response of any article all year! Now she’s sharing her secrets in new book released this week entitled, What Shamu Taught Me About Life, Love, and Marriage and a movie is in the works. Her husband, who nowadays can always find his keys and doesn’t hover over her while she’s cooking, is onto her game and even uses the same techniques himself. In fact, “Shamu” has become a verb in their dialogue—as in, “Are you shamuing me?” [Newsweek and Amazon]

In a list of things that make me want to barf about weddings, web-style acronyms for wedding terminology is high on the list. Lucky for me, Real Simple went and published the list online so that if I ever decided to go bulimic, I will have plenty of inspiration for gagging. [Real Simple]

Aside from the usual defense that “it’s all pink in the middle,” researchers in Canada and the US monitored hundreds of couples to find out if there were any differences in the level of commitment between civil unions and marriage. The two studies published in the January issue of Developmental Psychology gathered evidence to support the integrity of civil unions and have challenged the traditional, truly antiquated, claim that same sex relationships are more dysfunctional than heterosexual ones. In one study, researchers working together from the Universities of San Diego, Vermont, and Washington found that, in general, same sex couples fought less and felt better about their partners than their heterosexual counterparts. Moreover, the study conducted at the University of Urbana-Champaign learned that lesbians were, “especially effective at resolving conflict.”  Bonus points for the ladies! After years of scrutiny, both research teams concluded that gay couples in civil unions and married straight couples were equally committed to their romantic relationships.  Now if only the rest of the world could see them as being created equal! [Forbes]

Now that I am engaged, I am already feeling the pressure to start hanging out with more couples, doing double-datey things like going to the adult arcade, fancy restaurants, and the opera. Which all sounded swell to me until a married friend sent me this video, warning me that this was what I was in for. Of course, I laughed, because this little toe-tapper by Riegal & Blatt explores the many ridiculous aspects of couples dating through hysterical one-liners like, “My wife and I see new friends, on who we can depend, because our single friends tend to party when we feel sleepy” and “How about a 7pm movie? Staying up late just isn’t groovy. Besides the farmer’s market opens early tomorrow—it’s almost strawberry season!” But then I wanted to cry because I never wanted to believe that getting married meant being so boring that you’re now the punchline to a joke on YouTube. Is it really? [YouTube: Weekend Plans]

Suffice it to say, I’m not much for many traditions, including the one that says your intended fiance should ask your dad for permission to marry you (I just got engaged and while I thought it was sweet my bf…err, fiance…talked to my parents about his intentions after the fact, I am glad the only person’s permission he sought was mine). Subhash Chander, 57, of Oak Forest, Illinois might disagree with me on that. He allegedly set fire to the apartment building where his pregnant daughter, her husband, and their young child lived (killing all three) because the husband (who he didn’t approve of because he came from a different caste) didn’t get his permission to marry his daughter before they wed. If it turns out that he’s guilty, I am going to scream in outrage. What do you all make of this story? We’re anxious to hear your thoughts in the comments. [CNN via Feministing]

In an attempt to spice things up, a 50-year-old man bought a vibrator for his wife, but now she seems to have lost interest in him. The husband knows she uses the vibrator, so he thinks it’s the vibrator’s fault that she doesn’t want to have sex with him anymore. This is kind of sad because he was only trying to bring her pleasure by introducing a toy, but maybe he should have known that women are more likely to orgasm from masturbating than from having sex. An Australian study found that 56 percent of women who were sexually active without a partner had an orgasm every time they masturbated, compared with 24 percent of women having sex with a partner. Also, was this his wife’s first vibrator? If so, we’re definitely sadder for her that she missed out on all the fun for 50 years. [The Guardian]

Daily Mail columnist Sam Holden is a bold man, declaring, “The only people who can actually cook on this planet are men, even the ones who only cook once a year when their wife or girlfriend is ill.” Surprisingly, he is married. And while we would dump his ass if we were his wife, she totally gets him back with her response: “So, boys, next time you are boring on about how you created the latest gastronomic masterpiece, and taking your wife to task about her shortcomings in the kitchen, don’t be surprised if she gently points out that the kitchen is not the only room in which performance counts.” Oh, snap. [Daily Mail]

For the record, I am not engaged. I suspect I will be engaged, however, anywhere between one month to slightly less than two years from now. Being that this impending engagement is pretty much around the corner, I’ve been doing alot of hemming and hawing about what to do should that joyous occasion arrive and I need to decide what to do about my last name. For many, if not most, women, taking their husband’s last name is a no-brainer, which is perhaps the aspect of this debate that bothers me the most. It’s not that I don’t acknowledge the convenience, the ease, even the, gag, romance of sharing the same last name as the hubs, but it seems to me that spending 28 years on Earth with one name and then just throwing it out like yesterday’s garbabe is a decision that should be weighed with a little bit of levity. I am weighing it with an extraordinary amount of levity and have found that there is a bit of a dialogue going on between two sides of my brain on the subject. Right and left battle it out, after the jump.

HBO’s controversial new show Tell Me You Love Me is amazingly depressing, incredibly arousing, and mind-bending-ly boring. Focused on four couples, all of whom are straight and fairly middle-class, the show aims to give the viewers an uncensored look at male/female relationships, flaws completely exposed to their bloody mucus-y center. To be perfectly honest, we didn’t give a hoot about the high-minded premise—we tuned in for the much buzzed about, hardcore sex scenes that left some reviewers wondering if the actors actually did it. It’s like porn but with better lighting, hotter, less plastic-y people, and a great soundtrack. But like porn, we were extremely tempted to fast-forward through the pesky storyline – which has one couple that is completely sexless and another that is trying and failing to have a baby – to get to the humping. But we didn’t. And that’s why the storyline completely killed our lady boner. On a positive note, if couples were forced to watch this show, there would probably be a dip in divorce rates – but only because they wouldn’t be getting married in the first place. [HBO]