The Anniversary Zone

[pantryslut]

G. and I have been seeing each other for a year now, more or less.

"More or less" because we haven't quite figured out what constitutes our anniversary, nor what occasion we'd like to use as a marker.

The first time we met? The first time we played? Our first date?

An additional complication is the fact that at least two of those dates are now Bad Omens (tm) for reasons that I can explain to anyone who's interested -- in private.

So, why not open this up to everyone who's in a nontraditional relationship or three. How and when do you choose to mark your relationship anniversary/anniversaries? How did you reach the decision to celebrate it then and that way?


P.S. More random anniversary data:

1) Steven and I couldn't remember the exact date of our official wedding-like anniversary for about nine years. (That's what happens when you elope, I guess.) We think we've got it down now.

2) The other weird thing about G. and I and our anniversary -- in fact, our whole relationship -- is that we've been moving in similar social circles for so long. I knew how to spell his name and what he looked like on sight years before I "met" him, thanks to Black Books' mailing address and his attendance at PPO and other events, for example. (Good thing I'm not a stalker, eh?)

Comments

[kalmn.livejournal.com]

for my gf, i count wiscon as our anniversary, but i think she counts from sometime in the fall.

for the one i live with, our legal anniversary is within a month of when we actually started dating (fs very large vo "dating"), so we generally just count from sometime in the spring, and actually celebrate on the legal anniversary.

[kiya]

I don't actually do anniversaries. I can't even consistently remember that it's my own birthday, after all. There are sort of calendrical thingies floating around, though, which mostly I don't mark in any meaningful way.

teinedreugan and I traditionally date our relationship-initiation to homecoming of my senior year. Which he can generally remember when was. I think it was probably sometime in the next month, going at it logically, which will mean our ten years. We were married on Yule, which makes that much easier to remember.

I can dig up the initiation of my relationship with brooksmoses to the Email Of Declaration Of Interest In Relationship. (Having a relationship conducted in significant part in email makes documentation significantly easier.)

I don't know when brooksmoses and suzimoses construct their anniversaries, though I could probably dig up knowledge of when their wedding anniversary is if I prodded at it enough. I believe suzimoses and teinedreugan count their relationship from February of 2001, while brooksmoses and I were at Boskone . . .

I don't have any sense of anniversary at all with oneironaut or erispope, and I'm not sure if I'd be allowed to have one with diagonti (since I don't actually know if we have a relationship), but since I don't, it doesn't matter.

[redshrike.livejournal.com]

for the hoptoad, i have two: one for our first day-and-night together, which launched the relationship (it wasn't a date, and it is a rather long and involved story); and the other, for our wedding.

for the ladybug, i have one, and that wasn't a date either, but it was the date on which we met, the first time we talked, the first time we danced together, and the first time we kissed, all in one.

any others i have a much more vague.

[wordweaverlynn.livejournal.com]

I'm an idiot savant, or half of one, about dates. So I know the date I first talked online with gramina, the date I emailed her to say I was falling for her, the date we actually met, and the date we consummated our relationship. The last is the day we usually celebrate.

Similarly with alanbostick: the day we met (easy -- it was Christmas night), the day of the first indication of interest, etc.

anniversaries

[debbieann.livejournal.com]

We don't remember dates very well, and don't really celebrate anniversaries or bdays very much. It is easy to remember when we started living together in this house, but even that we don't really celebrate. We love to go out for nice dinners or buy things, but we just do it at random. I think we've known each other 10 years.

Re: anniversaries

[pantryslut.livejournal.com]

More than ten years, I think -- I haven't known Charles longer than you have?

[redbird]

cattitude and I can't agree on when ours is: I'm sure of the possible answers (there are two plausible init points, a week apart), but he disagrees (not on the events, but on when they happened). Maybe if we'd thought of this before we were coming up on two decades, we'd remember.

[manomano.livejournal.com]

For the first few years we celebrated every month on the day we first had sex. We called it a lunaversary, and every year on the date as an anniversary. Yes, I know this brings up a bad Friends episode. In addition, we generally acknowledged or marked in some way the day we officially met. Occasionally, one of us (usually her) remembered the day I first saw her, which was several months before she noticed me.

However, that wore down to an anniversary. Then we had our parties, and decided to celebrate in August, the anniversary of our second one. But the 12th still seems to the major celebration date.

[manomano.livejournal.com]

Oh, and happy anniversary.

[fattest.livejournal.com]

My anniversaries tend to be based on the date of first having sexual contact. That could include kissing, I suppose, though, um, generally those two firsts have gone hand in hand. Ahem.

[(Anonymous)]

From Nalo: urg. What we think of as constituting an anniversary date is different with each relationship. For one relationship, we picked the date of the first night we spent together, since that did feel like a definite beginning point. I haven't talked with my other sweetie about what would constitute an anniversary date. My instinct would be the first day of the first time we made a point of blocking out a few days to be in the same city and focussed on each other. One of my lovers just celebrated an anniversary last night with one of his lovers. They picked the anniversary of the first time they met in person, though they'd been connecting with each other online for some time before that.

I just had a thought.

[black-pearl-10.livejournal.com]

(please note the burning rubber smell coming from Palo Alto)
I'd like to mark a certain bound, blindfolded, and beaten birthday celebration as our date.

It was the first time I thought, "Hmmm, I think I could get into this one..." :)

Now it's a matter of trying to recall the damn date. It was on a Sunday in September, which means it's either (due to this leap year) the 7th, 14th, 21st, or the 28th. Do you remember which date? Piggy might be able to help out here. She had gone back to Maine the weekend before.

Re: I just had a thought.

[pantryslut.livejournal.com]

I'm down with that.

And it might just be on my calendar still, though I wouldn't bet valuables on it.

[rysmiel.livejournal.com]

papersky had the good sense to get involved with me on my birthday, which makes it a very easy anniversary for me to remember.

[lcohen]

oh lord, i've celebrated on every day under the sun with different people, i think. my first wife and i picked the day she proposed since we never had a ceremony--my second wife and i, it was the day we met. one gf, it was the first time we slept together which was about a month after we met. i'm not sure when current people and i will count as of--none of them are a year yet.