How to bag your man

Everyone is getting engaged at the moment (ok, not 'everyone' but enough people alright!) and it's typical of people in their late 20's, they're at that stage in life, in a nut shell this means:

• They are generally stable in their job
• They have bought their first home
• They are financially ok
• They are bored
• Everyone else has and they are feeling left out

Yeah the last couple of remarks are a bit cynical! But if I'm analysing the last few couples I know who have got engaged they all fall into that category! My lovely cousin got married in May and I just got the impression from talking to her friends at the wedding (the type of people I do not usually mingle with- but that's for another blog!) that this whole marriage thing is just a big competition, it harks back to the competitiveness there was at school.

Anyway yes I DO want to get married BUT I'm not doing it now because everyone else is, even though I get those little thoughts creeping into my head sometimes. I made a marker in my future life timeline (everyone has those, right?) that I won't get married before 30 because I honestly feel that I'm not emotionally ready yet, I don't even class myself as an adult half the time! My boyfriend agrees! He's a year younger than me anyway.

Have you ever been unconvinced that people don't actually love each other? Then you hear that they got engaged and you're like 'what the hell?' I'm sure they don't hate one another, they seem to tolerate one another but they don't convince you that they are really IN love.

Anyway I keep coming across couples like that at the moment. It brings me back to people thinking that the whole marriage thing is a competition. They panic when others are doing it before them and they decide to 'settle' for what they've got or if they're unattached then they'll find someone hastily who is just 'ok' and settle for them because searching/waiting for 'the one' is just too much hassle and way too time-consuming.

There was a very interesting article about this in a Sunday supplement recently about 'settling' for someone. Basically imagine you have a boyfriend, he's reliable, has a comfortable amount of money, he gets on with your family, he's not amazingly good looking BUT he will 'do' so to speak. So what if there's no huge spark or lots of fun and giggles, he'll be ok financially, he will get on with everyone round your parents at Christmas and you think he'll make a nice Dad some day. But I could never do that. There has to be a bit of 'je ne sais quoi' about a person in order to commit to spend the rest of your days with them. Thankfully in my heart I believe I've found that.

A massive generalisation I am now going to make: once people get married, they get boring! There are certain marrieds who I've given up on inviting out with us because they always say no, maybe they just don't want to hang out with people who aren't married? They're in a new exclusive club, I shouldn't forget that.

So do you really want to know how to bag your man? Well this interesting (did I say interesting, no I meant RIDICULOUS!!!!) article I found tells you how to get your man to propse to you? If you try this and it works, please contact me. I like to have a laugh. I honestly question whether the person who wrote that article was on glue.

Oh and if you ever thought weddings were a silly waste of money, take a look at this site to see how much you can spend on a cake. Shock. Horror.

To satisfy your visual appetite I've included a couple of my favorite celebrity wedding dresses: Gwen Stefani at the top the page and Dita Von Teese (what a vamp) at the bottom.

Right, now I'm off to plan my wedding. Just kidding.