This is going to be a text about how Lucas is fantastic.

(For new readers, Lucas is my boyfriend of almost four years, fiancé of almost three, and come September 20th, hopefully my husband. It depends a little on whether immigrations have finished their paperwork by then.)

Now, he really is fantastic. I’ve often been told by friend (and acquaintances of both me and him) what a catch I’ve made, and I have. The guy is fantastic. If not for other reasons, for putting up with me and my somewhat confusing and chaotic existence and prickly personality.
I am what one would call high maintenance. I am very emotional, I pout when I don’t get 100% of people’s attentions, and while I don’t have diagnosable anxiety attacks, it’s pretty damn close. Of course, I am not exactly sure what it is to be ‘low maintenance’; I associate the expression with someone who leaves her boyfriend alone with a beer and Monday night football, gives him his weekly fuck and a few blow jobs, cooks his dinner, otherwise leaving him alone. That’s not the girlfriend I’d want to be, and nothing could make me, barring a lobotomy. But as a rather rabid feminist, I have set the requirements for a good partner rather high, and yet Lucas manages to fulfil them. He isn’t into porn (for, I think, the same reasons I am not) and he washes his own socks. Granted, he was about as spoilt as I was when he started college, bringing his dirty laundry home when he visited over Thanksgivings, but I think it was less due to laziness and more in order to save those magic quarter. During our almost four years, I have washed for him twice. Both times because I was doing laundry anyway. Both times he thanked me for it. I don’t imagine that it will stay that way once we live together, as it would be ridiculous to keep separate laundry piles, but it’s a good sign. Four years of doing his own laundry will hopefully save me from the forty years of slave labor I see my mother perform.
When he was in high school, during a trip to Seattle, most of the guys in his group went to a striptease club. Lucas and another guy decided that they weren’t interested (I can’t remember what they did instead, but I imagine it had to do with video games.) He told me about this in the beginning of our relationship, and I can’t explain how many points he won there. Fantastic.
Three years ago, I went on the birth control pill. However, I got off of it fairly soon, and it fucked my body up quite bad. Most of my mucus membranes were damaged, and I couldn’t sit properly for half a year. Sex was completely out of the question for almost a full year, and still has to be limited; in fact, the psychological consequences of the pain still leaves me with issues. I only just recently could start wearing tight pants. If this would have happened now, I would have been less surprised by Lucas’ resilience, but it was when had only been together for a year. He could have ditched me within a month; how many twenty year old guys stay with a girlfriend from whom they’re getting no sex (if they don’t have religio-ideological reasons)? Not many.
I spend hours and hours at the computer, reading and writing blogs, talking to people, and reloading my LiveJournal friends list. Checking email. Designing something. Reloading my livejournal friends list. Lucas puts up with it, even when it annoys him. After he has spent five more minutes than I’d like on a video game, I pout (I should mention that we most often manage to cooperate on this; he plays his video games while I am online, and they don’t often collide.)
I fangirl, and squee, and freak out over ridiculous, geeky thing. He thinks it’s cute. I’ve never heard him loudly proclaim that some chick is hot, or caught him giving anyone a once-over while we’ve been out.

He doesn’t bring me flowers. He gives me teddy bats, DVDs and action figures. I’ve never ever received a generic present from Lucas. Well, he has given me flowers twice; two black silk roses in Valentine’s Day, and a bouquet of white lilies as a welcome-back present my third fall in the US. But never, ever, anything generic. When I was doing volunteering for a class, and got home around 1 p.m., tired and cranky, he had been to the mall to pick up a t-shirt I had been coveting for quite some time. He feeds me skittles. He calls me his lady Stardust. I tell you, he’s fantastic.