Another reason that engagement rings are a pain in the ass

This advice column at Tomato Nation really got my goat.

Okay, here's the deal. I've been dating the girlfriend for about a year and a half. We're not engaged, but pretty much as soon as I find some time to buy a ring we will be. I'm five years out of grad school where I had essentially two best friends, neither of whom have I seen much in the time I've been with the girlfriend, due to the craziness and mishegoss of life.

Grad Friend One got married a few months ago. I was invited to the wedding alone. Girlfriend found this to be very rude and classless, and was quite upset. (A little more so than I could comprehend, actually.)... Friend Two explained that only fiancees and spouses were invited because there was no more room in the ballroom...

So today I get the invite for Friend Two's wedding, and it's solo. I'm pretty sure I'm going to pass on the wedding. While I understood the first time, this guy knew it was an issue and did the same thing. I'm not mad at him, since it's my belief that it's his party and he can invite whomever the hell he wants. BUT, I don't think it's appropriate for me to go under the circumstances....

And he wants to know how to make his excuses.

Sarah's advice is that she thinks that girlfriend is getting angry about....something else. Duh.

Well, I think what's up is that she's upset because she thinks you might have underplayed the seriousness of the relationship to your friends, or she's feeling insecure because married couples get preferential treatment in social situations of this ilk, but in any case, she's not mad that she didn't get invited per se. She's mad that her plus-one status wasn't assumed, and that might not seem like a whole different discussion...but it kind of is.

The solution to this man's problem is so evident I'm embarrassed to spell it out. All he has to do is tell his friends and everyone around him that that he and his girlfriend are engaged so that she gets the invitations she deserves from the Marriage Nazis. (Okay, I'm biased, but I do think it's rude to demand marriage certificates before acknowledging someone's relationship as valid. You can be married to someone you know for a day and get these privileges. Big whoop.)

He's holding out on the committment for the ring, meaning the ring makes the engagement "real". Someone who's managed to work all the way through grad school should have enough intelligence not to mistake the symbol for the thing. Now maybe I'm a hopeless hippie, but I think the thing that counts is the promise, not the diamond. If they are, in fact, planning to marry they are already engaged. And she should get that status.

Why is she suspicious? Gosh, I wonder why. He's all but saying, "We're engaged, but it's a secret. My friends can't know or they'll invite you to weddings."

I have no idea what his real motivations are, whether he's lying to his girlfriend or he's been hoodwinked, but the big, fat diamond ring is the problem either way. You can't have love without the money for it on one hand, or the expense of the device is a way to string a girlfriend along by pretending you're going to marry her. How romantic.

The letter also made me wonder if I live on the same planet, much less country, as these people, who are presumably my age and well-educated. Excluding the female half of a long-established couple simply because she isn't sporting the proper jewelry is really, really crass to me.