'Anniversary' debate

[FrazzleRock]

We've been having a bit of a debate at work stemming from a small argument a colleague had with his girlfriend.

If you're not married, what do you consider your anniversary date to be?

I assumed it would be the date you met. Colleague said "but it was just a random date" (they met on dating website) and he was dating quite a few at that time. He said he would take it from the point they decided to be boyfriend/girlfriend. He says January/February time, his girlfriend is saying November.

I can't see how you can put a date on that though, you don't suddenly say to eachother "todays the day we shall be boyfriend/girlfriend" do you?

My boyfriend and I consider it to be the day we met. (also met on a dating website), but it appears I'm the only one in my team at work who believes that, which surprised me. But then we weren't dating others at that point... Perhaps it totally depends on the circumstances at the beginning of the relationship and it doesn't really matter that much, but it got me thinking as I was so outnumbered!

What do you think?

Annie do you remember the day your second child was born?! Seems a bit harsh if not.

We're married now but will still go for a drink in our first date venue on the anniversary of that first date. It was a very important day.

We have the convenience of First Shag Anniversary also being First Date Anniversary. Which keeps it simple. We quite often go away for the weekend.

Not bothered if people think that's ridiculous, it's relevant for the two of us.

Thanks for the responses. Very interesting! So the conclusion is, every relationship is different and celebrate whatever date is memorable to them (or not in some of your cases)

I wonder what made all my team mates (predominantly male, if that makes any difference? Can't see why it should) look at me like I was odd for suggesting first date.

I bet they too think it's first shag.

Mind you I tend to think that it's the shag that makes it a date. Otherwise it's just an outing, surely?

First date for us, until we got married. We abandoned it then and 10 years on I only remember it approximately, even though we were together a long time before we married. (To respond to someone above who mentioned it being ingrained. Clearly not in my case )

I wish I could remember the date we met, bit neither of us can! It's 10 years sometime this month, I think! We have a really easy to remember wedding date, so that anniversary is remembered!

And of course you can celebrate an anniversary even if you're not married.

We met online too but it took us AGES to finally meet up. Our "anniversary" is our first date (3rd September), though we did have the I-really-like-you-let's-make-this-official chat about a month later. We're getting married in April so we'll get a new anniversary then anyway.

We tell everyone it's because that's when we did a whole 'what about it chat' but it's much more to do with the sex we had. We still tend to raise a glass or such (winter solstice). We're married now, but it's nice to celebrate the giddy moments as well as the commitment ones.

We must be crazy then. Every month we "celebrate" the "anniversary" of our first date. Truth is, we are both busy and can at least guarantee a quality date night once a month by calling the 6th of every month 'date night'

Day we first met, first date and first shag were all within 24 hours for me - lol - I can't actually remember the date now but sometime at the beginning of January.

Now we just celebrate our wedding anniversary

I never celebrated an anniversary before marriage. Well, not once I was out of my teens.

But then I didn't celebrate my wedding anniversaries either, so there we go.