A pick-up artist gave me a good piece of advice: the three most important things in a relationship are honesty, trust and respect, and if you don’t have those, you don’t have love. I have found that to be true. A friend said recently that you should date someone for a year, live with them for a year, then get engaged for a year before getting married. To me, that seems sensible.

While I am impulsive in many areas of my life, marriage is not one of them. It’s a step I’ve not yet taken, as you want it to happen just once and to be married for the rest of your life, for your kids. Like my teen goal of hoping to stay alive long enough to lose my virginity, I want to stay alive long enough to have a child. After all, that’s the reason we’re all here.

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