When she told us, when the words spilled from her mouth “So, Honey asked me to marry him and I said yes,” her hands flew up by her face. Like she couldn’t believe it was true.

We shouted and the whole room fell silent.

In that same moment, Hilary and I started crying. I think I wiped my face on my coat; it was the only thing I had available.

Everyone with their serious coffee and seriously cool sunglasses, looked our way. Chanel raised her hands and said “It’s ok. I’m engaged.” They in turn, went back to ignoring us. Marriage isn’t cool, apparently. Except this marriage is so, so cool and we are so, so excited.

But my engagement was nothing of the sort. There was no fanfare; no hoopla—in the moment we didn’t even have a ring. But it was absolutely magical. It was just the two of us, at two A.M., grappling with a question that would change the trajectory of our lives and feeling no hesitation to run headfirst into YES.

I wish I could put into words what I felt that night when Honey proposed but the emotions are so intense and so unlike anything else that synonyms fail. The best I can manage is to say it felt like if I don’t find a bathroom in 2.3 seconds I’m going to pee my pants mixed with oh my goodness, did that homeless guy in the bedazzled vest just do a triple axel mid-stride and then keep on walking? In other words, it was like panic and WTF all rolled into one. That…and bunnies. Everything felt furry and the moment smelled like Betty Crocker’s blueberry muffins baking. It was buttery.

Maybe I suck as a girl but I’m not much looking forward to wedding planning. I’m still stuck on that moment when some guy looked into my eyes and said he was signing up to spend the rest of his life with me. Like he was so into what I was selling that he was leaving a down payment now so he could buy the shop later and have it for the rest of his life. That’s pretty frigging fantastic if you ask me.

So we don’t yet have a date, but screw the wedding. The biggest day of my life has already happened. Like April Wenchell wrote over at Brides.com, “I think a much happier day is the day someone tells you they love you enough to put up with your crap for the rest of their life. And if you’re as big a pain in the ass as I am, the wonder of that moment will never be surpassed.”

So I thought about it…and then weeks went by…

Then Sarah and I debated over the course of a few Gchat conversations about the how and when of coming clean…and then months went by…

And soon it was old news to us and frankly, I forgot some people didn’t know so my news became a not-so-secret secret, kept hidden out of sheer laziness and fear of seeming overly self-involved.

So while this may hardly be news to most of you, I felt it necessary to clarify one particular point for all of you that have asked (due to my “exposure” on a sister website).

Honey would like to be called Hubby. It’s official: I’m engaged.

I may have a particular sensitivity to this feeling as a black woman in a mainly white circle–black women have been habitually overlooked in American culture and even deemed less desirable, or as one psychologist said “objectively unattractive” (oh no he didn’t!). It can feel like there is a perpetual inferiority to our life stories. In film and television, we call this phenomenon the “Black Best Friend (BFF).”

Essentially, its about the tendency of filmmakers to showcase black actresses in primarily supporting roles as the funny sidekick or sage advisor (with sass of course), but rarely the featured character. Critics claim the implicit message is that the stories of black women don’t matter.

I don’t want to belabor a racial issue right now. See criticism of the recent film The Help if you want to talk race. But I would, however, like to linger for a moment on the universal feeling of constantly being “the friend” or an understudy in real life stories of love.

photo by Nate Poekert

I’ve made an accidental habit out of being the best friend to a number of ridiculously beautiful women. Case in point: Sarah (see right). I mean the lady has legs for days, a hair swoop so smooth Nike is taking notice, and a freakishly chill “I’m just one of the guys” attitude that makes her so easygoing and accommodating that I want to punch her in the face.

Wait, what were we talking about? Oh yeah…playing second fiddle.

See the problem is when you are friends with someone fantastic and others take notice of their light, it can feel like your friend’s sun only serves to illuminate how deep in the shadows you’re living. But I’ve learned that stewing in bitterness, jealousy or envy is wasted energy because the other person is rarely the problem. Now get this…don’t miss this: feelings of being overlooked are almost always surefire signs that we’ve lost sight of who we are.

I realized this a couple years ago just before I met honey after a season of drowning from the weight of feeling second best. Over the course of a few months I had to make a conscious decision to stop being a second-rate Sarah or a poor carbon copy of the other desirable women around me. I started to press deeper into who I was with all of my varied interests, past experiences and unique hopes for the future. Soon enough, when I least expected it, the guy who would never want the women I’d previously been envying, fell in love with the real me.

If you’re feeling like you are constantly going unnoticed, start paying some attention to who you are. Log out of Facebook; sign out of Twitter; go spend 10 minutes in the mirror. Press deeper into who you are and see how that changes your situation.

We’re in it with you so let us know how it goes by leaving a comment below or shooting us an email at ikisseddatinghello[at]gmail.com.

I don’t actually apologize for finding these qualities attractive. The biblical framework for church, calls us to meet both spiritual and practical needs. Moreover there are numerous verses that call us to seek justice, Mathew 5:9 reads “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God.” Working to dismantle gross inequalities is a biblically sound, worthwhile endeavor. And in the grand scheme of things, having a thing for do-gooders is probably better than crushing on a guy who hates on puppies and burns styrofoam for kicks.

Even so, it took me a while to recognize that I’m attracted to these sort of men because on some level, they represent the sort of person I want to be. My personal experience attests to the fact that when we unthinkingly attach ourselves to someone who already encompasses the things we feel called to, the following can take place:

1. We get lazy.
   By dating rather than becoming, we place the burden of stewarding our gifts on the shoulders of someone else.
2. We flout God’s creative intent.
   The bible tells us that each person is uniquely called and uniquely gifted. This offers us an extraordinarily diverse picture of how the kingdom ought to work in the here-and-now. Our identities have already been named by God. The dreams that have been whispered into our hearts are nuanced and however admirable another path might be, the identity that’s been staked for someone else isn’t ours to co-opt.
3. We readily turn types (and even personal calling) into idols.
   It’s possible that I’ll marry someone whose heart is hardwired in the same way that mine happens to be – deeply concerned for others, adamant about using whatever influence they have on behalf of those who have none. However, admiration for certain aspects of a person shouldn’t stand in the way of honestly assessing compatibility. Moreover, it’s helpful to remember that while our culture elevates certain career paths as proof of our commitment and values, God simply asks us to hold him as our first love. Perhaps more incredibly, God rebukes those who inadvertently flip the two. Consider Martha or the church in Ephesus, they were doing good things and it didn’t matter.

My preferences have changed over the years and will likely change in the future. Rather than giving so much weight to a relatively arbitrary measure, I’ve taken to asking myself some of the following questions: Where does his identity rest? Apart from our shared appreciation for [insert quality here], do we have much in common? Do I like who he is as a person, how he treats people and how he cares for me? What matters most to him?

What questions are you currently asking yourself?

This weekend, while waiting out the hurricane [insert air quote motion] the following conversation took place:

Friend: …that happened at The Rockaways. There were all these couples being all coupley and there was one couple that was READING OUT LOUD to each other and I was like, “WTF, did I not get the memo?”

Me: Umm. That was me.

All: (hysterical laughter)

And that basically sums up my summer. It’s sort of a haze, albeit a lovely haze that included days at the beach, hiking trips, illegally swimming in a lake and tacos eaten beneath a summer sky with Justin Vernon singing in my ear drums.

I learned that even if you never manage to see the British guy again, you say “YES” when he asks if you’d like to hear him read a bit of Kerouac. In this moment, you will resist the temptation to have him repeat certain words simply for the sake of hearing them again. You will realize that accents earn men about 100 bonus points. You will briefly consider moving to Ireland, Australia and/or the UK.

Technically, I abandoned the Time Out, and even though I’m still (very much) single, it was great to go out with someone and have the dynamic remain ridiculously uncomplicated. It was a healthy reminder of the way things ought to work. I suppose our silence on IKDH could be attributed to simply needing the time and space to figure a few things out, and to focus on the tasks that are currently at hand. Tasks like spending an hour on the phone with Chanel reviewing her Pinterest boards for wedding ideas. IMPORTANT THINGS, Y’ALL. That said I’m really curious to hear what y’all have been up to. Did you meet the guy/girl of your dreams? Did they ride in on a pony with rainbows shooting out their ears? I hear love looks something like that, so please, go on and dish.

Whatever your relational state, here’s a few songs I’ve been semi-obsessed with. In the interest of keeping them thematically linked to IKDH, I’ve gone ahead and noted the situations in which you might most appropriately enjoy them:

• S(he) turned out to be a distant cousin of Satan himself – Zowie, Bite Back
• You’re staring up from the bottom of the world’s worst breakup – Justin Vernon, I Can’t Make You Love Me
• You decided to chill the eff out about relationships, and focus on other things. Adults might refer to this as “gaining perspective.” – Hillsong, Rhythms of Grace
• You fell in love and are walking around looking perpetually drunk – Mat Kearney, Hey Mama

QUESTION FOR THE INTERNET: Is Mat Kearney married yet? Someone needs to get on that. Until then, let’s all resolve to live life with more hand claps.

MUSIC NOTE: If you don’t yet have a spotify invite and would like to try it out, please just shoot us an email and we’ll get right on it.

Have you ever experienced a mild period of depression following a shopping trip?

Maybe it’s around the holidays and you’ve been on a 3-week search for the perfect gift or it’s just before a major event and you’re on the hunt for a super flattering suit or cocktail dress. You think to yourself, maybe one more store will have it. I just need to check one more shopping center or search JCrew.com one more time and then I’ll have it. That build-up and anticipation of finding what you’ve been looking for, immediately followed by the disappointment of not getting the thing you want can be life-sucking.

Online dating sometimes feels like a bad trip to the mall. You think, if I just log into OKCupid with a shopping list of what I want, I’m sure I’ll find a woman who looks like the girl next door and has a sense of humor like one of the guys. Or maybe that new niche site How About We will have some guys in stock who listen when I speak and remember my favorite flowers are peonies. But then nothing happens. You spend weeks surveying your options, months without getting matched with anyone who’d make a viable partner, and soon you’re back in a relational rut, feeling almost worst than before you started the whole process.

At the risk of your own sanity, now might be the time to call it quits. While eHarmony claims that an average of 542 of its users a day get married after meeting on the online dating site, there is no guarantee that every person who tries online dating will find the one. And if you’ve been dating online for an extended period of time, going on so many first dates that your introductions are basically scripted and you no longer refer to past dates by their name but by superlatives like “Muffin Top” or “Mayonnaise Freak,” logging off might be your best bet.

When you take a break from the search, you give yourself the bandwidth to pursue other opportunities for connection, like expanding your social circle by joining a group dedicated to a hobby you love or spending more time away from your computer and out at coffee shops or bookstores where you might bump into someone with similar interests. Taking a hiatus from online dating isn’t an indication of failure or somehow confirmation that ‘no one will ever want you.’ It just means that’s not the avenue for you at this time. So fine–take a break and try again when you’re refreshed and ready to jump back into the hunt.

What do you think? What are some signs you should call it quits and take a break from looking for love online? We asked two of our readers how long they had been dating strangers from the internet. Here’s what they had to say:

Read more in our “Looking @ Love Online” series:

Part 1: When to Try Online Dating
Part 2: Choosing the Right Dating Site
Part 3: Moving Past the Stigma
Part 4: Creating Your Profile
Part 5: Filtering Your Matches
Part 6: Identifying Red Flags

Ryan Gosling and Steve Carrell star in Crazy, Stupid, Love. (Warner Bros. Pictures)

The language of love is so cliché.

The second the subject of romance hits the table, people start trotting out sickeningly sentimental terms like soulmate and how at one glance they just knew they’d found the one. That’s why this latest summer rom-com Crazy, Stupid, Love. written by Dan Fogelman (Tangled, Cars) is so dizzyingly genius.

Mature and aware enough to be conscious of its own propensity for the trite, this hilariously honest love story introduces relationships across the generations, from the brief moments of a romance’s inception over mint-chip ice cream cones to the demise of love after marriage, and back again.

Starring “thank God he left ‘The Office’ to do this full-time” Steve Carrell and “who knew he could be so funny and hot at the same time” Ryan Gosling, Crazy, Stupid, Love. is about high school sweethearts Cal (Carrell) and Emily (Julianne Moore) who reach the point of divorce after two decades of marriage. It’s beneath this tragic arch that Fogelman intertwines tales of a teenage boy’s first love, a schoolgirl’s crush on a married man, and a burned out player smitten by the girl he couldn’t “get.”

Tremendously funny, and cleverly devised, I literally shouted “I can’t take anymore” while exploding with laughter at the climax of the film.

Crazy, Stupid, Love. hits theaters this Friday, July 29th. Do you have plans to see the film? We’d love to know what you think. Check out the video below to catch the trailer.

How is your hope treating you this summer?

In New York there used to be this annual BBQ in Prospect Park that was put on by a group of young black professionals and attended by over 1000 people. I lived for this event. I waited months in anticipation, fretting over outfits and hairstyles to perfect “my look” so I could show up in the freshest style for a casual afternoon in the park. The trick was to appear that you’d just thrown something together while also inferring that Beyonce’s glam squad had touched you up just before you ambled over with your picnic blanket.

My heart still races a bit when I think back on the amount of hope and expectation I had each summer waiting for these BBQs. I’m a part of a predominantly white faith community so the opportunity to be around other African Americans en masse met my very real need for cultural connection. And more than that these opportunities somehow affirmed that I was beautiful as a young black woman, washing away the particular kind of loneliness and relational insecurity that can come from being a minority in the church.

So each summer I’d get excited, working up some hope of finding the one, the myth…the young black professional male (who was educated, had a job, loved Jesus and appreciated short ribs in equal measure). I always had a great time at the BBQ. I mean, you try being depressed while you’re double-fisting a slice of watermelon in one hand and a grilled chicken leg in the other. #notpossible But as the day would draw to a close, disappointment eventually set in on the long walk home, as I wallowed in sadness over my hopes being dashed having failed to make a connection. The weight of disappointment was crushing.

I’m currently reading Rumors of God, a book by two Aussies Darren Whitehead and Jon Tyson who are pastors at major churches near the cultural epicenters of Chicago and New York City, respectively. In the book the writers beautifully unpack the moment in scripture along the road back to Emmaus when we encounter the story of the resurrected Jesus as he meets two of his disciples leaving Jerusalem following the Crucifixion.

His identity hidden from them, the disciples lament to Jesus, “We had hoped that he was the one who was going to redeem Israel.” But with his death, all of the excitement that this was the the Messiah has vanished so they leave the promise of Jerusalem and head back to Emmaus.

I’ve made that walk.

Now hear me out…I don’t mean to cheapen the Gospel by equating my departure from a BBQ without giving a dude my phone number to the despair those disciples must have felt having just watched the Messiah who was to bring the kingdom of God to earth crucified on a cross. But I know what it’s like to live in the letdown. I know what it’s like to walk without hope.

But the good news is that God shows up in those moments. As Whitehead and Tyson point out, it’s on that walk away from the fulfillment of their hope that Jesus comes alongside them to love, restore and reignite their hope in place of the disillusionment that was beginning to take root.

So again I ask, how’s your hope treating you this summer? Are you on the long walk toward Emmaus, wallowing in the disappointment of expectations for relationship gone unfulfilled? Are you in need of Jesus to walk alongside you and remind you of his promise?

This song has a story to it. The first time I heard it (and the first time Zach played it in public, as far as I’m aware) I was in a small bar in Brooklyn, nursing the wounds of a day-old breakup. Despite accepting the reasons for the split, and despite having ended things amicably, I found that I was still very sad about the whole thing. I had liked him.

I hadn’t anticipated that my ex would be there that night, or that he would make a point to ignore me altogether. As I recall, he was standing right in front of me, just a little bit to the left when Zach sang the line “Come on, my love, I’m not the one that you were looking for. I’m not the shoulder you should cry on. I am the one you should’ve let go.” I stood in the audience fighting back tears while friends reached out with gestures of quiet empathy. I hung in there just long enough to see it through the end, and then I grabbed the nearest coat (incidentally, not mine) and booked out of the bar. It took half a block for my best friend to catch me; where I stood, on a sleepy street corner, and sobbed. Zach’s song cut.

Hearing it again made me think of the music we tie to moments. Music is incredibly powerful in its ability to wake the memories we’ve long since forgotten. There’s the memory of Zach’s song, and there are others. Joseph Arthur wailing on a harmonica. Ryan Adam’s cover of Wonderwall. Timshel, while hanging onto a friend

What are the songs for you that are stamped (good or bad) with the memories of a relationship?