On Sunday afternoon, C & I chatted about my recent curiosity about all things wedding, including his own wedding (since I have now plucked up the courage to ask about it). For the last couple of weeks, I've found myself insatiably devouring wedding-related websites, and being intrigued by some but disturbed by others.

But more than anything, I'm probably more disturbed by my obsession with wedding sites. It's not as if I'm sitting here wishing I was planning a wedding, I'm more reading up on what I'm going to be missing. And I think the main thing I'm hankering after is some sort of "celebration" of 'me', in the same way a wedding is the celebration of a couple making a commitment to each other.

It made me realise that I've not really had any sort of celebration for anything that might be seen as a 'significant' moment in my life. I get the impression that most people have celebrations for lots of things - graduating from University, getting married, buying a house, having a baby, etc.

I never had any sort of celebration for passing my exams or graduating. When I was taking my A-levels, my sister's then-boyfriend was also taking his driving test. I remember being very jealous that he got a lot of 'good luck' cards, and when I asked my mum why I hadn't received any, she thought that I wouldn't have wanted a fuss to be made. She was partly right - but the notion that my sister's boyfriend was getting good luck wishes from practically every relative we had, while I didn't get any, grated quite a bit. After I talked to my mum, I received a flood of good luck cards, which was nice but felt terribly fake.

As for getting my results... Well, the less said the better. I walked in the door proudly clutching my grades (A, B, C, E - I had been expecting C, B, C and a fail at best), only to have my mum cut me down by telling me that she was disappointed in me for 'only' getting a C for French. My dad was away on business at the time. That was about the last I heard of it.

My University graduation was the same. Despite no-one from my family ever having gone to college or University before, I felt that if I got less than a 2:1 I'd be in trouble. Well, I got the 2:1, and my family dutifully turned up on my graduation day. But they went home straight after the ceremony, leaving me to go to the pub with my ex and some friends. I remember that day being pretty awful. My graduation picture is of me wearing a forced smile and no make-up, looking bloated and stressed. My mum and I had argued that morning because I was nervous about the ceremony, and her response was "I don't know why you're fussing, it's not as if you're the only person going up there". FWIW, I never had any 'good luck' or "congratulations" wishes for my University exams or graduation either.

As for buying my flat: my mum was confused at best, upset that I'd "struck out on my own" at worst. I had a "congratulations on your new home" card from my step-brother, though, which was nice.

OK, so maybe it's just greed and jealousy that's eating me. But it's not as if I would have liked lavish celebrations and gifts for all those achievements, just some sort of recognition other than a "but we always expected you would get good results" or "but now no man will want you!" response.

But to be honest, passing my exams and buying my flat pale into insignificance now, when I think about what I regard as the greatest event of my life so far: getting sterilised.

I hugely regret not celebrating that.

When I had the operation, I kept it quiet mainly due to fear of what people would think. But in the back of my mind I badly wanted to let people know about my decision, in the same way new parents don't hesitate to let the world know about their progeny. But I didn't; and I reckoned I'd get over it. But I haven't: I've just got more regretful as more and more of my friends and acquaintances get married and buy homes and have kids and have the appropriate celebrations. And I feel like I totally missed out on celebrating the most important thing I've done with them.

OK, so what I want to celebrate with them is a little weird. No, it's very weird. But it was right for me, and I'm proud of it.

C knows I regret this; that I'm annoyed with myself for having missed out on an opportunity to celebrate. His suggestion is that on the 23rd January next year - which will be the second anniversary of the op - we have a small party for all those people who know that I'm sterilised. But that to me seems a little dumb - celebrating the 2nd anniversary, when no-one even knew about it at the time. And the only 'Real Life' people who know about it now are C, my ex, KT, my dear friend Chris, a handful of my work colleagues and my doctor. Sending out invitations saying "Come and celebrate the second anniversary of my tubal ligation!" to people who don't know about it, or who might know but are embarrassed to bring it up, seems totally daft. And that's another thing: people don't like to talk about it; it seems almost a shameful thing to have done sometimes.

So no doubt, on 23/01/03, C and I will probably go out for a drink, or remember the Best Moment Of My Life^TM in some similar small way. But I doubt I'll be 'celebrating', because even I sometimes feel that it's 'wrong' to be celebrating stuff that society reckons it's not 'proper' to celebrate. Social conditioning is a powerful thing, is it not?

Of course, all this doesn't mean I won't have other things to celebrate in future. I'm quite determined that the next time something happens that I consider worthy of celebrating, I'm damn well going to do it and avoid regrets later.

Thing is...

Well, that thing is C & I.

But I'll come back to that; at some point in the future when we've been together for longer than five-and-a-half months and if I'm still feeling as desperate a need to tell the whole fucking planet that we're together as I do now.

And then, if both conditions are met, we'll try figure out the logistics and the 'societal acceptance rating' of having a "Hey! We're together!" party.

It would have been nice to discover how much more disapproving the masses would have been of a 'sterilisation' celebration, versus a 'commitment' one. I guess we'll never know.

Oh, and I'm going to ban myself from looking at wedding sites. It's unhealthy (and do people really spend $80,000+ on one day? Geez!!)