Two years ago today...
... I received a message from a guy on OkCupid with a rather goofy grin. He told me his name was Alex and I erroneously called him Matt (in my defense, 75% of the OKC people who messaged me were named Matt). We e-laughed it off and we decided to meet up for a beer, as he was living with his parents and was bored and I was living in Woodbridge without a car. After a quick background check via the Virginia court systems (lead foot, but otherwise clean) and a quick text to my best friend/roomie of my game plan, I walked up the street to a shopping center to meet up with Alex. He picked me up in his giant work truck and we went to Buffalo Wild Wings, where we chatted for a few hours over everything and nothing. We had a great evening and he kissed me when he dropped me off in my neighborhood.
Two days ago, after relentlessly hounding him after he let slip that he had been using his recent pay raise to get me something for our two-year anniversary, he buckled down and pulled up a picture of a ring. White gold with an alexandrite gem. He told me he'd been planning this for months and he found it harder each day not to refer to me as his wife. We immediately started talking about some basic wedding stuff and about calling my family to let them know. He finally said "let's get married" and I said "all right. I need to call my folks." When my parents didn't pick up initially, Alex recommended calling my brother, who proposed to his girlfriend last weekend. Alex wanted me to make perfectly clear that he'd been planning his proposal since Christmas. When I told my brother everything, his knee-jerk reaction was to have me tell Alex that he'd been planning his proposal since November (a blatant untruth, but antagonism is a learned trait in my family). My parents eventually returned my call and they were both quite thrilled.
The ring came in yesterday. It fits perfectly. I've managed to sucker-punch myself in the chin with it as well as cause some cosmetic scratches in assorted places, but I love it all the same.
All in all, I was incredibly surprised. His two year anniversary gift to me was a token to show that he wants us to share every 4th of July for the rest of our lives. And all I got for him was a grill.