How to Survive a Missed Wedding Anniversary
A short while ago, I posted a story about how I missed my wedding anniversary and didn’t realize it until 3 days after. Well, luckily for me, my wife didn’t hang me out to dry for my crime, but I have been around long enough to know that I was really lucky in a way few of my fellow Forgetful Joes ever are. Seriously, the drama surrounding this anniversary matter is, well, dramatic; so I am keeping my promise to put together a survival kit of sorts to ensure that you guys don’t end up victims at some point.
First of all, we need to understand just how grave the matter is. While the origin of this whole anniversary brouhaha is a bit obscure, there is a widely held belief that it has roots in Germany in the middle ages. Apparently, life expectancy was so low that if a couple lived through 25 years of marriage, the husband (or his neighbors) presented his wife with a silver wreath. Fast forward through some hasty research and you arrive at people like American Emily Post, who in 1922 published ‘Etiquette’, which, among other things, outlined how we should feel about anniversaries, celebrate anniversaries and what we should buy our spouses to commemorate them!
Naturally, with our wholesale adoption of western culture, we now have an entire crop of city-dwelling black men trembling at the thought of the inevitable cold war, resulting from the inevitable occasion, when we will inevitably miss an anniversary- they are, first of all, never-ending (till you die, guy) and there are too many that we are expected to mark and celebrate in some significant way. I mean, just look at this list!
According to conventional wisdom, if you miss one, as a guy, you are DEAD! And, I suppose, in most cases, that is true, but I think there are ways to avoid or reduce the fallout.
The Survival Manual
This survival kit is for those of us who are walking on eggshells already (and as a warning to those of us who are starting to tile our floors with eggs) to help navigate through anniversary-angst and, maybe, live long enough to celebrate a few of them. Here goes;
1. Marry a Brit: Granted, this only works if you are not already married but, according to a Travelodge survey, “1 in 5 married Brits has no idea when their wedding anniversary is — with women more likely to forget the date than men…” and “…30 percent (of) Brits think that this tradition is out-dated.” So if you aren’t yet married, or you can trade in your current spouse, marry a Brit- chances are that you won’t have to deal with anniversary issues at all.
2. Tell the truth: Okay, so you are NOT married to a Brit and now face the horror of anniversary-related drama from your partner. I could suggest some creative ways to package your transgression; you could go the white-lie route and tell her how the dog ate your homework, there was an earthquake, an aeroplane fell on the guy who was delivering her flowers and so on, but that is just pathetic (plus she will see through your crap and you will look even worse). For me, lying is just too undignified so I suggest you confess… THEN get creative! Win her sympathy by highlighting all the problems on your mind that crowded out your own personal joy… (this is spinning, not lying).
3. Begging & Bribery: This is an age-old, tried and tested placatory move and I cannot fault it. Let me tell you why; people love new, shiny, relatively valuable stuff (not just women, but the Afrocultural, genetic(?), traditional norms prescribe that it is the man’s duty to find and present his woman with shiny shit, so find some shiny shit that balances out your memory lapse and deliver it… quickly!).
4. Be a good husband: This method is the simplest and the most difficult at the same time, but only needs a brief explanation- be a good husband every other day of each year and she just might find it in her heart to forgive your memory lapse on that particular, special day… maybe. The way I see it, a woman* who feels appreciated, respected, loved and periodically pampered in the regular course of your relationship, will have no basis to interpret your forgetfulness as a reflection of her value to you… IF your spouse is a ‘normal’ human female with traces of a conscience, that is… IF. If not, I give up!
I don’t expect that this list has to be followed in a particular order, except for being ‘a good husband’, which you have to manage permanently (sorry).
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