I saw this meme on Little Spoon, who I read via Margarita, and it looked like fun. The Husband is my most favorite topic anyway. So here is

THE MEME OF US

How long have you been together? Since our first date, July 3, 2004. I was stalking him for a while before that, though.

How long did you date? 7 months, then moved in together, 4 months after that we got engaged, a year after that we were married.

How old is he? Four years older than me, and let's just leave it at that. I don't like how old I'm getting.

Who eats more? Alan - he's the guy. I have a hearty appetite too, but he almost always has dessert while I don't. I hardly ever eat breakfast and he usually does. He snacks throughout the day, but then he's supposed to because he has borderline hypoglycemia so it's important to maintain his blood sugar level.

Who said "I love you" first? Alan. (I think I was thinking it first, though!)

Who is taller? I am by about an inch.

Who is smarter? I think we're equally intelligent, but in different areas. He knows so much about computers, I do financial stuff for a living, we both love to read and have extensive vocabularies - it just depends on what area you're asking about as to who's smarter.

Who does the laundry? We both do - he used to do more while I left most of mine to our housekeeper, the Sainted Miss Betty. Her retirement coincided with Alan deciding to take a couple of technical writing classes at college, so I've tried to do most of it since then.

Who does the dishes? Mostly we both do - we each put our plates and utensils in the dishwasher after a meal, both clear away the cooking stuff. He is generally the one who remembers to add soap and turn on the dishwasher, I'm generally the one who empties it and puts stuff away. If there's handwashing, I usually do it. But we switch off if one person is really tired or working a lot or whatever; it's not a hard-and-fast rule.

Who pays the bills? I do. He's not bad with money or anything but I do financial stuff for a living so it made sense.

Who sleeps on the right side of the bed? If you are lying in the bed (well, if you were it would be crowded!) but from that perspective, I'm on the right and he's on the left.

Who mows the lawn? Denise the landscaping lady.

Who cooks dinner? We generally share the cooking and enjoy cooking together, but some nights he works until 7 or 8 so on those nights, I do it.

Who is more stubborn? Me. He's very easy-going and congenial.

Who kissed who first? Well, I tried to, and he shied away from me! Much as he did the first time I tried to hug him. Did wonders for my self-confidence, let me tell you. I was devastated.

Who asked who out? He asked me, EVENTUALLY, after I had been dropping both subtle and blatantly obvious hints for weeks and weeks to no avail. Finally Nancy asked him on IM what he thought of me - it was a positive review - and she told him basically, look, I can guarantee that if you will ask this girl out she will say yes. So he finally did, and we did the dinner-and-a-movie thing. On July 3, which was clever of us to place our first date close to a major holiday, because that made it easy to remember and therefore celebrate.

Who proposed? He did, but I was the one who brought The M Word up first. We'd been dating a while and he had made several remarks about us moving in together. Side note, but kinda relevant to the narrative: he had a one-bedroom apartment and I had a three-bedroom house, so it was a given that if any cohabitation was to be done, he'd be moving in with me. One weekend we were hanging out at his place and conversation led to some more definitive comments from him about the move, such as when his lease was up, logistics of the move, etc. I didn't want to scare him off and I was terrified to bring it up, but I didn't think it was fair to let him disrupt his life, give up his apartment, go through all that upheaval if we weren't on the same wavelength about things. So I mustered my courage to say that on the one hand I thought it was too early to talk about marriage, but on the other I didn't think it was right to let him make all these changes, go through that upheaval, etc. and be totally surprised (and possibly opposed to the idea of marriage) when he learned that I viewed living together as a step in the process, not the end result. I added that I wasn't saying I had to have a ring on my hand before I gave him his key, or that there was any set time-line about things, like we had to be married within a year or anything, but that this was what I wanted/hoped for and if that was different from what he wanted, better to have it out now than after he'd made all these major life changes. I prattled on about this at some length, repeated myself, because he wasn't saying anything or changing his expression. He just kept cooking our dinner. When I'd finally wound down, he said, "Okay. What kind of ring would you like?" That was it: the entirety of his response. So it was a given that we were getting married for - um, a month or more before he moved in. After he'd had official residency at The Hellhole for about four months, we went ring shopping together. He had paid for my engagement ring and we were waiting for it to be resized when he turned to me and said, "Oh yeah. Considering the errand we just ran, I guess I should ask you - will you marry me?" and we had a kiss. Awwwww!

Who is more sensitive? Me, I guess. I'm not as sentimental as he is, I don't think, but it's easier to hurt my feelings. I think.

Who has more friends? We have a lot of the same friends, particularly Nancy who got him to ask me out in the first place; he was the best man at Nancy's wedding, Nancy was my matron of honor and her husband Mark was in turn Alan's best man - it's almost incestuous. Outside that circle of mutual friends, hmm...I probably started with more "see on a regular basis, hang out together" friends but all my friends positively adore him so they consider him their friend too. I guess that makes us equal.

Thus endeth THE ALAN MEME!