Conflict

I am becoming a bit of an adrenaline junkie thanks to working as an EMT.

While working today, one of our patients decided he didn't actually want to leave the hospital and attacked me. Needless to say, five minutes, several security guards and EMTs, and a crowd of twenty people later, our patient was on his way to the rig in restraints applied for our safety. Our driver was shaking; I was just incredibly pumped up.

Experiences like that break the monotony quite nicely, I must admit. And it turned out a lot better than my instructor's first few days on the job -- she got punched in the face. Funny how things come full-circle like that.

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I am getting pushed into a somewhat awkward position at work, though. My coworkers see my ring and tend to assume I'm engaged, and then tell the other guys that. It's gotten to the point where everyone believes I'm either engaged and/or married, and to where trying to correct that assumption just makes me look like a liar. So I've kind of just accepted that, and made peace with the situation.

In a sense, Nate and I are engaged, anyhow. With our promise rings, we made a commitment to marry when the time was right. Essentially, that can be seen as a private commitment between the two of us to get married -- and so we could be seen as privately "engaged." When he proposes and we start planning the wedding, then we will be publicly engaged and adopt the titles of fiancé and fiancée.

What it comes down to in the workplace, essentially, is the difference in perception based upon the adoption of a title. I just choose to respond to questions about "What is your fiancé studying?" etc, as if they had asked "What is your boyfriend studying?" I'm not differentiating between the two because it would just cause strange conflict, and honestly, I don't really think it's any of their business anyhow. I always deflect the conversation when they try to draw details out of me, because I don't see a reason for my coworkers to know intimate details about my life.