Astronomer

What Kate said, but also–try not to freak out. Kissing is one of those things that everyone stresses over until it’s happening. Then your body just kind of takes over and knows what to do. The hard part is going from not-kissing to kissing. Maybe lean and blink a lot? I don’t know. You could also just say, “Hey, I want to kiss you. Mind bending down?”

I don’t mind if people think I’m an Uppity Feminist. It’s not an insult to me. I am, in fact, a feminist. It’s certainly not something I would try to hide or apologize for. The way I figure, if someone has a problem with that, we’re not going to be pals anyway. I know in my heart that women are awesome and men are awesome and we all deserve to be free from crappy gender stereotypes and cultural inequalities. No shame there. I’ll sing it from the rooftops.

That being said, the couple times I’ve had to tell people I didn’t take my husband’s last name, I think I was pretty nice about. Mostly because taking a husband’s name is a thing that some people do and often enjoy doing. There was no harm meant in it, and there was no harm meant in my response. Just a simple statement. I can’t imagine people being offended by a gentle correction. I know if I got someone’s name wrong (mispronunciation, wrong last name, or whatever), I would definitely want them to tell me so I could get it right the next time.

I am also very, very lucky I live in a big city where I’m not a total oddball. I don’t know how people in suburban and rural areas deal with all the shaming that comes with being a feminist and/or not taking someone’s last name. Like, how do you navigate those conversations? How do those conversations happen?

P.S. Kudos to the ladies who have chosen to take their husband’s names, too. I know that for some people it’s easy and natural-feeling, but others have done a lot of soul-searching about it. I recognize that even though it was not my choice, taking someone’s name is a very personal and special thing.

You know, I don’t even think my husband and I had the name change talk until, like, a week after we got engaged.My husband and I are both proud, rah-rah feminists, so I think we just assumed I would always keep my name. His mom asked him on the phone if I would take his name, and he realized that he didn’t know for sure. He asked while he was still on the phone, and I shook my head no.

That was pretty much it, although I asked later if it bothered him. It didn’t. I asked him if he wanted to take my name, and he said no. We laughed and went back to whatever we were doing.

Aside from the obvious arguments, I DID NOT want to have to do/file any more paperwork than necessary to get the whole marriage thing done. That whole “It makes everything easier to have the same name” thing has not been true for me. I hate bureaucracy and standing in lines so much, I once let my license expire for a couple of months because I couldn’t bring myself to go and spend two hours at the DMV. Nothing bad has happened, no one has gotten confused, and it’s pretty obvious we’re a family unit.

Although we don’t want children and I probably can’t/shouldn’t have them, if we had an accident fetus that turned into a baby, I wouldn’t worry for it’s social status or any confusion that might happen at its daycare/school. For what it’s worth, we decided that a girl accident baby would take his last name, and a boy accident baby would get my last name.