My B-b-boyfriend

By Allison Kaplan

Many of my columns for a long stretch now have featured a reoccurring character known as The Boyfriend.

Week to week, he is charming, inept, amusing, and often, a stereotypical boy. Always, he is generic. Not to protect his privacy so much as mine.

As the boyfriend, he is a universal figure - not too threatening, not too real. Just a guy in the background who I can bring out when my story requires a date, or when I need a male to dump on.

For all you know, this boyfriend is more than one man - an ever changing figure in my struggle to grow up and find Mr. Right.

Turns out, the boyfriend is Mr. Right, and he has a new title: fiancé.

Now that I'm wearing his ring - publicly signaling the end to ephemeral boyfriends - I feel it is only fair he be assigned a character-specific name. For those many weeks as the punch line, for the times one little goof is exaggerated into nine paragraphs at his expense, for the occasions (very rare) his suggestions become material for which he never gets credit, he deserves a name.

So here goes - there's no turning back now. My f-f-fianc&eacut;'s name is Rustin. And that's no type-o.

Suddenly, I am this engaged person. The thought of it makes me giggle - in the car, at work, when I look at him. I have to wonder: is my sheepish laughter the manifestation of that giddy, cloud nine kind of feeling engaged people are supposed to maintain, or is it just so silly that I'm old enough to get married and have my parents be thrilled about it?

Maybe both.

The idea of being with Rustin forever isn't so strange to me. We've dated for three years - long enough that his grandma calls me instead of him, long enough for me to fold his T-shirts without demanding a back rub. (Although it never hurts to negotiate.) He's my favorite person. Even when we're stubborn and moody, we'd rather be alone together than apart. So it seems time to finalize the deal.

Besides, I suddenly have this urge to bake, and I don't own a mixer. It's the officialness of being engaged that astounds me.

A friend warned: men will take one look at my finger and pass right by because I'm off the market. I would argue many men do not look for an engagement ring or recognize one when they see it, but that's not the point. My heart - if not my finger - has been off the market a long while now. Still, putting those personal feelings out there for all the world to know can be overwhelming.

Take the other night: Rustin and I wandered into Crate & Barrel. Usually, I head straight to furniture where I drool over the $2,000 desk I imagine working on in my sun-splattered home office someday when I'm a big, successful grown-up. But funny thing happened on the way to the furniture department. We bumped into the flatware section and began debating matted versus shiny.

Alarms did not sound (except in my head), sales clerks did not laugh us out of the store. Now that there is this ring between us, Rustin and I are expected to talk about forks.

I didn't get queasy, until he mentioned how half of my Honda Civic will soon be his. And since we were playing so nicely, he offered to share his college loan payments with me.

Then again, Rustin drove me home from the auto shop the other day when I had to leave my car. He picks up my dry-cleaning when I can't make it. I'll cook him a chicken breast even though I am repulsed by the sight of meat. I once combed two stores trying to find a replacement blade for his electric razor.

He did my taxes.

Never in a million years would I have asked a boyfriend - even one named Rustin - to figure my taxes. Being a fiancé, I'm learning, is something entirely more involved. The idea that someone other than my dad is willing to share in my responsibilities - especially the most hated mathematical task of the year - helps me put a finger on what it means to care about a person completely. What it means to feel vested.

Someone asked why Rustin and I want to get married, when we are already together and happy. I fumbled for a substantial response, buying some time by joking, "Well, he gave me this pretty ring and asked."

Legalities aside, I think the "officialness," strange as it still feels, is actually what we are after. That sense of talking about getting a dog and knowing this is the person who will share a pet with me, next week or next year. Paying for dinner and not wanting to even up later. Realizing we will finally be allowed to share a bedroom at our parents' homes.

Let's hear it for marriage!

Of course for Rustin, making this commitment also means a lifetime contract to star in my printed stories. Name now included. Embarrassing moments not exempt.

What's yours is mine, baby.

Send comments to Allison at Singlstyle@aol.com