My phone rang in the middle of the night during the week, after I was fast asleep. My curiosity of who it might be wasn't strong enough to get me out of bed. Mainly because I knew that if it were an emergency, they'd call back. They didn't. And that sort of confirmed my suspicion: It was a booty call.

I've gotten calls like that while someone was in the bed next to me, and it's kind of uncomfortable, but it just feels plain weird when you're in a committed relationship with that person. Weirder still, if that person is your fiancé. When I woke up the next morning, there was no voicemail, but the call history showed the name of someone I'd hooked up with a couple of times about a year ago, and hadn't really talked to since.

My fiancé asked me who it was, since the call had woken him up, too. I replied honestly, saying, "No one."

There have been similar incidents. About a month earlier, I got a text at 4 AM from a different guy I hadn't spoken to in like 10 months that said simply, "Cha cha." I laughed when I saw it. I wasn't offended, since I used to be the queen of similarly open-ended mass booty texts that I would send out to a bunch of different dudes stored in my phone, at last call.

But, obviously, my social life is way different now. And I know that at one point, I seemed like a consummate bachelorette who could be relied upon for a good time, but I've been engaged for seven fucking months now. Even when I was pulling booty-calling stunts, I had a set of logic that went with it, like that I wouldn't think to contact someone I hadn't heard from in several menstrual or ANTM cycles.

What the hell is the statue of limitations on booty call candidacy? And will still I have to marvel at dudes' idiocy on these matters once I'm actually married?

Let me start by saying this: I am not a wedding person. While I understand that for many people, a wedding day is a huge deal and a big celebration that they are willing to spend a lot of time and money on, and if that's your thing, good on you, I have never, in my life, dreamed about my wedding day. I may have dreamed about a giant Carvel Fudgie the Whale cake with "A Whale of a Wedding" scrawled on it, but that's about it.

Popular culture is currently filled with Wedding Mania: on any given Saturday, you can probably find at least 800 wedding shows dealing with everything from finding the perfect dress to throwing the perfect reception. Weddings have become a serious business: the average American couple spends at least $28,082 on a single day of celebrating, though one wonders if the economy tanking will finally put an end to such spending. But perhaps the worst part of Wedding Mania is that the true meaning of getting married gets lost.

For example: as soon as I started telling people I was engaged, they had two reactions: 1. "Let me see the ring!" and 2. "Have you set a date yet?!" I understand that these are the standard responses, though my boyfriend, er, fiance, was greeted by "Oh hey, awesome. Congrats," by comparison. For being an Officially Engaged Person of female variety, apparently, means that you're suddenly a walking date book and advertisement for a jewelry store. No longer are you Hortense, girl on the go! No! You're "bride-to-be, who has a big party to plan!" To which I say this: Fuck. That. Noise.

You heard me! Fuck that noise! For one thing, my engagement ring was a Cherry Ring Pop, which, btw, was what I said I wanted nine years ago in a random conversation with my now fiance, who remembered. No, he didn't go to Jared, ok? He went to the candy store. And for that, he rules your face.

Secondly, we DON'T have a date. Because we are busy, and we have lives, and we have only been engaged for a month and we don't feel like planning anything yet. And if we don't end up eloping, which we may, due to this insane pressure to plan plan plan that has suddenly been placed upon us by previously sane friends and family, we're going to throw a wedding/party our way. There will not be fancy invitations. There won't be Save the Date magnets. We're not posing for a couple's portrait at Sears, Mom, because we would NEVER pose for a couple's portrait, EVER, so please stop asking.

All I'm saying is, world, for some Officially Engaged People, the world does not revolve around our upcoming nuptials. Yes, we're excited. And we're happy that you're excited too. But some of us just want to do things our way. We go to your weddings and enjoy the open bar and celebrate your love in the way you've planned it out, so just let us do our own thing, okay? I know that weddings are mass-marketed, and there are expectations placed upon us that society thinks we need to meet, and I am not dumping on people who are really in love and celebrate it in the traditional way, like my older sister did and my younger sister plans to do because that's your thing and it's awesome, and your weddings were and will be fun and beautiful, but for fuck's sake, universe, some of us just don't feel like picking out table settings or touring country clubs or meeting with florists. What is an exciting time of planning and sharing for some couples is a total drag for others, dig?

I am still a go for that Fudgie the Whale cake though. Because that's just classy.

With This Dress I Thee Wed And Wed And Wed [NYTimes]

After I got engaged, my fiancé and I started fighting a lot. All of a sudden there was a lot more pressure. And it wasn't just about picking our wedding venue, guest list, or color scheme. (I don't really give a fuck about any of that shit. Being a bride just isn't as appealing as I thought it would be. It's odd how making this one, very important, life-altering decision suddenly brought on a host of meaningless decisions over things I totally don't care about.)

Still, about one month into the engagement, after the initial excitement had faded a bit, there was this sense of all-or-nothing now that we'd decided to raise the stakes. I could feel him freaking out about the finality of what we were about to do, which I think is normal, and which I'd kinda been going through, as well. I was just dealing with it better, having the ability to ease my fears with the knowledge that this is exactly what I want, the confidence that I have in us both, and the idea of how much the rest of my life would suck if it weren't spent hanging out with him.

Still, we were bickering a lot, and alcohol never helps these situations. One night, after returning home from a bit of a bar crawl, we somehow started fighting, and it got really heated. We were screaming and eventually I kicked him out of my house. He was in his boxers and I literally pushed him out the door, and threw his pants and shoes at him.

He slurred something like, "You think I'm gonna marry you now?"

And I was like, "You're not!" I took my ring off and hurled it. I could hear it clink a bunch of times down several flights of stairs in my stairwell, and then I slammed the door. I immediately thought, Fuck. Shit. Fuck. I felt horrible. I knew it was way too dramatic and stupid; I just wanted him to wake up and quit his bullshit.

I opened the door and he was standing there, holding his pants. We were both still mad, but we knew we still wanted to get married. It took us what seemed like forever to find that fucking ring. It was wedged between the floor and the molding on the wall a few flights below. That was the last time I took it off. After that, I stopped being so dramatic... and he stopped drinking whiskey.

I felt like such a bitch after I did that, but was thankful that I threw it in an enclosed place and not out the window or something. My mom told me that her friend threw her engagement ring at her fiancé on a Queens street...and never saw it again. (They've been married for over 30 years now.)

I thought that perhaps this was a common thing. Kind of a milestone on your trip down the aisle. I started asking around to people I know who are engaged or married. A few women admitted to throwing their rings during a fight. Some were found, some weren't. One woman said that instead of throwing it, she "removed it dramatically and sadly and slowly put it down audibly." Almost everyone else said that if they didn't throw it, they definitely thought about it while fighting.

Maybe it's that when you decide to shake up your life in such a way, so many issues begin to bubble to the surface that you need to just explode in a display that really tests yourself and your partner. And when you're done, and if you still like it, then put the ring on it

Eva Marcille — who went by Eva Pigford when she won Top Model — became engaged to Tyler Perry's House of Payne star Lance Gross on Christmas Eve. Eva, who was once rumored to be linked with Missy Elliott, began dating her fiancé in 2007. She's been a series regular on The Young and the Restless— playing a character named Tyra. [Star]

Gavin says that he never said "fiancee" when referring to his now wife. "I think I just said 'my wife.'" I've actually contemplated just referring to my fiancé as my husband a few times, like to people who don't need to know my life story, e.g. the lady who does my nails. But I couldn't bring myself to do it, because we don't even live together, and it sorta reminds me of something that a weirdo habitual tale spinner like Kim from Real Housewives of Atlanta would do.

Sadie has the same problem. "I say 'boyfriend' and then people check my hand to see if we've called it off." Anna, who got married this past summer said, "I would either say 'boyfriend' or i would say 'fiancé' but I would preemptively explain how much I hated the word. There was always a warning before it came out of my mouth."

Sadie suggests that we "just go totally archaic with 'liege,'" but that still sounds weird. We tried to come up with some other options like "pre-wed" or "GIM" (as in "guy I'm marrying"), but neither of those seem very viable.

I know it's just a word, and I'll probably continue to say "boyfriend," but it would be nice to find a word that conveyed the distinction of our new relationship status without making it seem like our relationship is a status symbol. Any ideas?