The standard argument for my parents’ picking a husband for me is that they ‘raised’ me, ergo they ‘know me better than anyone.’ My usual counter-argument is that the St. Albert Public Library actually raised me, and they know me slightly less well than Marie Antoinette. But I digress.

Anyway, on Tuesday night I went out for the standard family birthday dinner at Tropika (scrumptious as always, plus free fried bananas and ice-cream for dessert! and embarrassing singing also). And the crazy old man proved he does know one thing about me. I realized that as soon as he handed me the tiny box.

He knows that my love is a commodity and can be bought using a variety of currencies.

So, I cracked open the box expecting earrings and just oohed and aahed over the ring – a dainty narrowbanded thing, white gold with diamond chips and an oval-cut sapphire. Shining in the light of the restaurant (that is to say, my burning dessert since the candle fell over) it was the loveliest gift I’d ever received.

Coming home, I photographed it as part of my intended birthday/holiday photomontage and took a more critical look at it. White gold, yes – but only ten karat. The diamond chips are so small they derive most of their lustre from the gold rather than internal fire. And, not very surprisingly, it’s a synthetic sapphire. This is especially evident from the underside of the dimestore setting, where the blue is markedly uneven and dull. I put the ring back on again, but it was too late, having lost quite a lot of its sparkle.

My rational brain laughed gaily and said, “Ah, the old man’s a cheap bastard just like you. What a typical Paki, eh?”

My irrational brain winced as if it had been slapped and said He doesn’t love me.

My irrational brain, I hasten to mention, is told every couple of hours that it basically just dropped out of the trees and is still responding to the old cues of flee?/eat?/hump?/kill? in response to everything. I know darn well that it’s the backbrain, the part that most people have learned to talk over using the megaphone of civilization. But every once in a while it says something I have to think about more thoroughly.

My father tried to buy my love and might have succeeded had he gone to Birks instead of Boulevard Diamonds.

It’s been the same for practically everything in my life. How sad is that? I even buy my own love. If I want to feel good about myself, I scrub out the bathtub or do six loads of laundry. Then there are warm fuzzies all around and I feel justified in celebrating with wine and Swedish Berries, because that’s what lovers do! Isn’t it romantic? Good job, me! Boyfriends, don’t even get me started. Some of them thought I was distractible, because you could catch my gaze by dangling car keys in front of me. They didn’t know that I was hoping for the car – for tangible ‘evidence’ of their love, which would earn my love in return. It wasn’t a short attention span; it was greed, insecurity, the certainty that if I was really loved, I’d have ‘proof’ of it, and that the absence of that proof logically meant the absence of that love. Which is, y’know, sick.

At any rate, this cheap but pretty ring has redelivered the message through my foot-thick skull that I completely and totally need to get it together. And every time I look down at it – and its stolid, unflashy ‘good twin’ on the other hand, my honours ring – I feel surer that I have a lot of growing up to do.