Promise Ring???

Q: Hi All! I'm new. Does anyone here understand promise rings? My boyfriend and I are totally serious, but we're 18 and heading to college in the fall. We don't want to make a mistake by marrying too soon. He wanted to "promise" to me and get me a ring. He specifically said we wern't engaged. I dont get it! Can anyone else help me??

A: ...have heard of this for mostly the *younger* generation, kinda like that gray area between going steady and being engaged. A promise ring could be anyring, including a very small diamond. Shades-past of a pre-engagment ring.. T Well... I had received two promise rings and one engagement ring before I finally got the one that still remains on my finger. It's great that you two care so deeply for each other, but a bluntly honest word of warning... Don't take it too seriously. If you're separating for college, that can be a bad thing for your relationship, but a good thing in the long run. You will have time to decide if he is really THE ONE for you, and you'll get to see what else is "out there". Just don't be too hasty, or too serious too soon. It's good that you said that you're NOT engaged. You will probably change quite a bit in the next four years. Maybe you two will change and grow together, but you may grow apart. Either way, be grateful for the time that you are together, and learn as much as possible from each other. Please don't get me wrong! I'm not belittling your love and dedication to each other! If you two are meant to be, then you will pass the college test with flying colors, and you will have built a very strong relationship through the years! But I'm just speaking from *fairly* recent experience -- and I know that "promise" rings, and sometimes even engagement rings, don't mean that you HAVE to stay with that person if you don't think it's right. These are sometimes called a pre-engagement ring (in certian areas.) They aren't very common around here (people rarely mention them if they have one) but they do exist. I really don't understand the idea. Contrary to where much of the debate in the cow-orker vent thread resided, I agree that you're either engaged or not (the issue was more if I had the right to keep it secret while engaged.) I tend to see the pre-engagement/promise ring

as a something akin to the exchange of a high-school class-ring. I think most people wind-up using it to mean that they are dating each-other exclusivly (IIRC, that's what the HS ring bit is about, but correct me if I'm wrong[0].) IMHO, if you *and* he want to make that committment, fine. But you either make it or you don't at the present time. Waiting to later allows you the opportunity to do so in the future. It would be an *awfully* long engagement (assuming the traditional route of waiting until graduation, however I'm seeing a lot who get married while in college[1].) Also, pre-engagement rings have a habit in my area of becoming engagement rings.