I don’t wear diamonds very often. They get in the way. They draw attention.

When we got engaged, I insisted on a diamond ring. A ring makes it real, and a diamond ring is traditional. Not only did I want other people to know we were engaged, I wanted to know I was engaged.

I’d had two previous boyfriends who had asked me to marry them. It turns out that what they were really asking was if they were to ask me for real, would I say yes. There was no sincerity to their question, unbeknownst to me. I thought I was engaged but I ended up just being embarrassed. The one constant in both situations was that there was no ring.

I wasn’t about to make the same mistake a third time. When my husband and I started talking about getting married, I called his bluff. We’d talked about what we would wear at our wedding and who would be there and what kind of food we would have. It was fun in a daydreaming kind of way but I was getting tired of playing the fool. Are we serious about getting married or not? And if we are serious, where’s my ring?

When I said this, slightly more gently than that, he balked a bit. His concern wasn’t about getting married to me, or even getting married in general. His concern was price. He balked at the idea of spending two months’ salary on a ring.

I pointed out that it is the diamond industry that says that, and I’m a cheap date. I don’t need a big flashy ring. I am not a girly girl. But I do need something to be sure of his intentions.

Now, while I didn’t want a big flashy ring, I also didn’t want a ring made up of a bunch of diamond chips. I’ve seen these in the past, but I haven’t seen any in a while. They look sparkly from far away but really cheap close up. And I don’t just mean inexpensive. I mean low class, in that trailer park kind of way. These rings have a simple shank and a flat disk soldered on top. This is to maximize the surface area. It is about half an inch across. The tiny pieces are set in it, without prongs. It kind of looks like a tiny lotus pod, but without the symbolism. It kind of looks like it came out of a vending machine or a box of Cracker Jacks.

I needed something a little more than that. Something that wouldn’t draw attention or break the bank, but also something that wouldn’t elicit sympathy and be purchased with pocket change.

We settled on a happy medium. The funny thing is that I don’t even wear it anymore. It sticks up a bit, and that makes it hard to wear at work or in the winter when I have to wear gloves. I ended up getting another ring that is channel set. I wear it when I’m not going to the Y, because I take my rings off then and I don’t want to lose it.

I’ve also bought another ring for myself and it is a “diamond in the rough.” It is a raw diamond set into a sterling silver band that has been hammered. It is one of a kind, and I love the symbolism. If it were to be cut to make it sparkle, it would lose a lot of its size. I also like the idea of learning to see beauty in simple things.