How ridiculous. Maybe they were just mad they had to buy and pay off rings.

I gave Mrs. Ghost the center stone from my mother’s ring, but had it reset (the original setting was boring). A few people thought it was bad luck to use a ring from a divorce, but neither of us cared. 

YES YES YES to all of this. My partner did propose with a ring, but I would have been PISSED if it had been expensive to that level. I also would have been annoyed with a enormous flashy situation because that would show a major lack of understanding about my life (i.e. I do like jewelry, I do wear small rings, but I…

Yeah, my fiance gave me his grandma’s ring. I love it, very small diamonds in a flower like setting. Really feminine and vintage. I love the symbolism that it has been in his family, and his grandma was married for 60 years. Plus it was free and I don’t need to feel guilty about the environmental and human rights…

My now-wife really wanted a big honking engagement ring. It was just always in her head that she would get one. We married older and were financially secure, so it wasn’t a big burden.

My husband gave me his grandmother’s ring, and it sits in my jewelry box because I have a field job where it’s completely impractical for me to wear daily. Hell, I didn’t even wear it when we were engaged. I would have been completely pissed at him if he wasted any money buying a ring. 

I’m reading that the couples fought amongst themselves because the women strongly feel that their men should go into debt to buy rings as evidence of their love and devotion. Those are some effed up values, so maybe it’s time to evaluate those friendships.

Same! I have my great grandmother’s setting from c. 1918 which I inherited after my grandmother passed. We did have to get a new stone bc the original was given to my shitty uncle to use at some point and is lost to the sands of time/a pawn shop in Connecticut, so we just repurposed a diamond from a necklace my mom…

I think this would cause a lot of ring purchases to not happen. Seriously it’s one thing for a girlfriend to expect a 5-figure ring given to her when she has no stake in the partnership. It’s quite another thing when you’re in a union together with joint finances and you have to make a choice TOGETHER to blow over…

*checks calendar* Ok, it’s a little early for wedding stories, anyone have a good engagement ring story? And by “good”, it could also be “terrible”.

I might be misremembering but I thought she even mentioned it in the book.

Think about the term “guilty pleasure” and what’s often cited:  things women are “supposed” to like such as romantic comedies, pop music, chick lit.  Have you ever heard of anything masculine-coded as someone’s guilty pleasure?

The other day, my husband said to me, “I decided not to try to reason with you about buying Jagged Little Pill on vinyl and bought what was in our Amazon cart.” I gave him a pitying look and said, “It is an amazing album. You’ll see.You’ll see.”

This made me laugh so hard.  Thanks for the Monday pick-up!

I am giving you all of the internets for this. 

I remember the night I discovered this video - the whole room of friends went absolutely berserk.

Girl, yes. Jagged Little Pill and Live Through This came out when I was 14/15 and they were perfection to me.

As a kid that hit middle school a year after this album came out, Jagged Little Pill felt like the first time I had permission to be ANGRY or disgruntled.

Gotta disagree hard on this one. IMO Jagged Little Pill holds up as a top 10 90s album. It’s a viscerally angry album and Alanis is SO GOOD at getting her emotions across.