Engineer
Reader, I married him. The man of my dreams, the love of my life, an engineer.
I know what most of you will be thinking right now – an engineer?! A civil engineer?!
Aren’t they all introverted, unsociable nerds who have pocket protectors?
Well, reader, maybe the stereotype has a grain of truth to it (though obviously not in every case), but why is that automatically a bad thing?
Not everybody likes going out that much – I certainly don’t – and while it might take a few glasses of wine to get me to admit to an encyclopedic knowledge of the Wheel of Time series (I’ll never tell), what’s wrong with being nerdy?
In practice, all it means is that you are knowledgeable about the things you love, and really… is there anything wrong with that?
Be assured: smart really is the new sexy.
I admit that sometimes we have our differences – our personalities can be very different, with him not understanding that I just need to vent sometimes: I don’t need any problems solved, I don’t want a reasonable voice explaining to me what is happening – I just want to be heard with a sympathetic ear!
But all types of engineers – chemical engineers, mechanical engineers – have been trained to seek solutions for problems. That’s just how they approach things, and unfortunately it sometimes bleeds over into their personal lives too.
All it took was an explanation (and, to be completely honest, a few reminders…), and my husband now lets me vent, gives me a hug or a drink depending on how bad the venting session was, and we get on with our lives!
We all have our quirks – I may not understand why my husband has to have his socks rolled up into perfectly symmetrical balls in the sock drawer (I mean, seriously…WHO DOES THAT?!), but I’m sure he finds my habit of leaving my shoes and coat in a heap by the door after I’ve had a hard day equally annoying.
We all annoy each other, and are annoyed in our turn by them.
At the end of the day, we love each other, so I will roll his socks if I’ve done a load of washing, and he will hang my coat up if I haven’t got round to it yet.
He can fix next to anything!
Even if he is a bit useless at deciding what colour we should paint the hall (hint: cream), the actual painting is a dream, because he brings the same intensity towards it that he does towards most aspects of his life – electrical engineers are particularly good for this, because they straddle the line between building things and making them run properly.
No light fixture is safe in his domain!
That intensity is probably the highlight of my life right now – my husband is an extremely focused man, and while the majority of his focus is on his work, when that focus is turned to me, he makes me feel like the only woman in the world!
Does his engineering brain ever make life difficult? Well, yes, sometimes. Perhaps. It can be difficult for him to switch off, just because of how he thinks.
I can quite easily switch off my brain after coming home from work (sometimes with the aid of aforementioned venting session), and spend a happy evening watching tv, reading, playing against in a game of League Of Legends…but he finds it much more difficult to stop thinking in that way.
It can be frustrating, because if I’ve had a bad day, I just want to leave it behind and focus on an enjoyable evening, and my software engineer husband is still lost in thought about the latest technical issue which is plaguing his work this week.
My husband could work on his romantic gestures a bit more (it was a lonely Valentine’s Day this year…) but I wish I could show you just how dedicated he can be.
I am the happiest woman in the world, I promise.
