What are your thoughts on celebrating a dating anniversary?

[Deleted]

Believe it or not, Monday is the 1 year anniversary of meeting my boyfriend. (heart) I cannot believe a full year has gone by.

Since we don't have an official date of when he became my "boyfriend", I've decided to call October 20th our anniversary (he agrees that makes sense). But I don't know what - if anything - to do to celebrate. He would do something if it was important to me, but when I asked him if he likes to do things to celebrate anniversaries like that he said "not really". How romantic. lol.

We're spending the next 2 weekends apart and he's got 2 tests and a paper due within the next 2 weeks, so I don't even know what we COULD do. I am thinking of writing him a card or note just saying some mushy things about the last year, but IDK what else I even would want to do. We do fun stuff all the time so I don't feel like it's really necessary to go OUT to celebrate. But the irrational part of me feels like neglecting to celebrate something like an anniversary means our relationship is doomed (lol). Like it's "important" to do something and if we don't we're setting ourselves up for failure.

What do you think? Should we make a point of celebrating this milestone? If so, what should we do?

[Deleted]

You're overthinking this. Not celebrating is not indicative of the success of your relationship in the future.

If you want to commemorate the day with a card and dinner or whatever, then do it. I don't think there is anything wrong with celebrating anything that's important to you, but don't feel like you have to out of obligation.

[Deleted]

Oct 15, 2014 10:44:08 GMT -5 @wandering said:

You're overthinking this. Not celebrating is not indicative of the success of your relationship in the future.

If you want to commemorate the day with a card and dinner or whatever, then do it. I don't think there is anything wrong with celebrating anything that's important to you, but don't feel like you have to out of obligation.

I know I totally am I am being a little TIC about things being doomed, I just feel like it's something "normal people" "should" do. lol. Who cares, right?

I feel like shouting it from the rooftops, but as far as actually DOING something, it seems unnecessary. I feel like I celebrate the fact that we're together every day.

[gozf]

We are not anniversary celebrators. We know around how long we've been together (three years this month) and all that, but we don't really do anything about it. We do, however, get often get mushy in bday and holiday cards.

If you want to do something to celebrate, go for it.

[cuddlyevil]

If you want to do something, do something. Personally, I think the schmoopy card sounds nice but if he's not big into anniversaries, will he appreciate it?

[jojoandleo]

I love excuses to celebrate. H and I celebrated out one year by going to the same place we had our first "date" (quotes because he invited me to "hang out with some people" which ended up just being him. LOL). We exchanged presents and had the sex.

Now that we are married, we only celebrate wedding, but I know people that STILL celebrate their dating AND their wedding anniversary. I say, it's up to you guys. If you WANT to celebrate, DO IT! If you only feel like you have to because it is the "norm" fuck it! Order Chinese and have sex.

There is no right answer on how to be a couple.

[lyssbobiss, Command, B613]

We celebrate the aniversary of our first date as our actual anniversary and I really don't care if anyone else has an issue with it. Why not take the opportunity to celebrate? Dinner out, card, good sex? Yes!

[starburst604]

We always celebrated the anniversary of our first date, now we celebrate our wedding anni instead but I still always remember it when that day goes by.

[prettyinpearls]

For our first dating anniversary I made a custom canvas of my favorite firefighting picture of H that I had taken and had the FF’s prayer added to it. I was just looking for an excuse to give it to him, so it happened to be an anniversary gift. Otherwise, it just would’ve been a card with something uber mushy written in it (we’re big on cards) and probably dinner together if it worked with our schedules.

Do what feels right!

[Deleted]

I'd want to go out to dinner and celebrate with a good meal and wine. Do whatever works for you, I don't think there is any right or wrong

[jojoandleo]

Oct 15, 2014 11:28:20 GMT -5 starburst604 said:

We always celebrated the anniversary of our first date, now we celebrate our wedding anni instead but I still always remember it when that day goes by.

I THINK ours was November 3 or 4? LOL.  It's been six years now. I think we celebrated it again our first year of marriage (we got married slightly before our second year dating anniversary). I don't know when I forgot the precise date, but it's been a while now.

[Deleted]

Oct 15, 2014 11:00:08 GMT -5 cuddlyevil said:

If you want to do something, do something. Personally, I think the schmoopy card sounds nice but if he's not big into anniversaries, will he appreciate it?

Yeah, he definitely would. I don't know if he'd appreciate it MORE because it was an anniversary, but if I gave it to him at any random time he'd be happy to receive it. I say nice things to him regularly, but I'm not a big gushy romantic expressive type myself, so writing it out in a card would I'm sure make him feel good.

I don't think he's anti-anniversary,  I think he's just really low key and doesn't care about gifts. For his birthday we settled on takeout and watching the hockey playoffs... despite my offer to do something more special, that's the type of stuff that makes him happy. And is actually far more authentic to our relationship than romantic dinners out and flowers or whatever. So maybe the suggestion of Chinese takeout and sex is a good one That's like a typical Friday night for us anyway.

[Wanderista]

I agree that you can pretty much do it how you want to. It has always been celebrated in my relationships but generally just with dinner and/or flowers.  I haven't celebrated any anniversary with this guy yet because it is still a bit early for that. The actual date is easy to remember because my family friend had a baby on that same day. He will probably be out of town next year then though. Also with the way things started, I kind of think a large chunk of May would count as anniversary territory so I'd probably be cool with celebrating generally sometime around that time of year.

I don't think it's necessary but I do think it's nice to take time out to be appreciative and romantic.

[lyssbobiss, Command, B613]

Also, congratulations! A year is awesome.

[Deleted]

If you wanna do something small, why not?  We don't really know when our BF/gf anniversary is LOL.  We just said the other day that it's been about a year and a half since we met.  Whatever works for you!  Have fun!

[cam13]

I celebrated my one year dating anniversary with BF because, why not?!

In fact, he leaned over and kissed me yesterday and informed me that we met 16 months ago exactly. I'm not a really mushy person but I did melt a little before making fun of him for remembering the exact month!

[jellymankelly]

For the first several months we were together, we'd joke around about it being our "monthiversary" and I'd usually send some sort of "Overly Attached Girlfriend" meme that went along with whatever month it was. For our 1 year, we exchanged cards. Simple and sweet. I'm definitely the type that values sentiment over hype, so that was perfect. We acknowledged that it was significant without getting too crazy. I think you should do whatever feels natural.

[Deleted]

Oct 16, 2014 7:37:30 GMT -5 jellymankelly said:

I'm definitely the type that values sentiment over hype, so that was perfect. We acknowledged that it was significant without getting too crazy.

Ahh I think this is a good way of putting it. I think this is me, too. I definitely care more about acknowledging this milestone in words vs doing anything else.

I think part of my confusion here is that my XH was all about the hype. He was a gifts, dinner somewhere fancy, flowers sort. That was never really my gig, but I was fine with going along with it because it was important to him. So now it feels a little weird NOT TO do something, since that was the habit every other year I've been in a relationship for years, even though I don't feel like that's authentic to me or to "us" with my BF.

Thanks guys I think I'll just do a card/note and call it good. We have enough other things going on in our lives right now (between school/work/social stuff) that doing something extra just for the sake of doing it doesn't even sound that appealing.