I’ve been through my fair share of dumb-f#$%s along the poorly paved road to love, and I’ve been on both the giving and receiving end of heartbreak. After all that, I dare say I may have finally found that special man with whom I can see myself committing multiple felonies and running away to a tropical non-extradition country to raise our herd of ruffians. Rap-sheet notwithstanding, the man who marries me is one lucky SOB. Not because of my beauty, charm, intelligence, kindness, sense of humor, or considerable modesty (the internet really needs a “sarcasm” font). No, Honey Badger is lucky because I do not want a diamond engagement ring.
Quick! Grab the smelling salts!
Now, that’s not to say I don’t want a token of such a momentous life decision. I will, after all, be entering into a commitment that virtually no one in my close or extended family has successfully navigated, and I have nothing against wearing a symbol of my commitment to my fiancé. Though, I would greatly prefer a system in which both of us wears a symbol of our engagement, but I’ll get to that later (something tells me that a good number of the men-folk would rather drop $10,000 than wear a ring before the wedding). The real question is, do I need (or want) a bit of hardware that, in order not to look pathetic, necessitates a bank loan listing your first born as collateral? No. Three months salary can kiss my ass, and, for that matter, De Beers can go fornicate itself with a rusty saw blade. A decent ring should not cost over a grand.
“But Ms. Lailah,” you say, “a diamond is forever. My three carat Tiffany proves my shnookie-bear looooves me!” No, it only proves that your spineless shnookie-bear caved to societal pressure just as badly as you did. And that diamond may last forever, but I’ve got $100 that says you’re going to “trade up” at the earliest opportunity, eternal symbol of your devotion be damned. Don’t get me wrong, I am all about freedom of choice and capitalism. So, if you insist on having the biggest, shiniest round brilliant in the showroom, then have it and be happy. Just be honest about why you want that ring. Ask yourself these three questions: How often have you fantasized about showing your big-ass ring to your friends (and enemies)? If he tied a bit of string around your finger and told you he was saving the money he would have spent on an engagement ring for a down payment on a house, how long would he be in a coma? Would an inability or unwillingness to get you a diamond big enough to pull M&Ms into its orbit keep you from marrying that person?
NASA called. You’re f#$%ing up their reentry trajectories.
My point is, the utility of expensive engagement rings has passed. Back in the day, if a woman was engaged and her betrothed suddenly got cold feet, her chances of finding another man willing to marry her were “slim” and “aw hells no.” As recompense, she could sue him for breach of promise. Our courts eventually ended this practice, and the tradition of an expensive token of engagement replaced it. It discouraged men from promising marriage simply to get under his lady love’s petticoats and provided immediate monetary compensation if he skipped town in the middle of the night. Nowadays, virginity isn’t nearly the commodity it once was and no woman is “ruined” if her fiancé decides he was happier with his tattered La-Z-Boy and milk-crate coffee table than with her. Therefore, the tradition of spending three months’ salary on a glorified chunk of Kingsford is nothing more than a savvy marketing scheme by the diamond industry. Should you be taking pricing suggestions from the company whose profit margin depends on you coughing up your life savings?
The fact remains that, besides being outrageously expensive, diamonds are a commodity that comes out of a system so outrageous, twisted and dysfunctional that the E! Network is rumored to be in negotiations for a TV series called In Da House With De Beers. During the initial taping, CEO Phillippe Mellier leapt across the conference table and started smacking an intern with his Blackberry holster. All mockery aside, though, we’ve all heard of blood diamonds, yes? You may also be aware enough to ask your jeweler whether their diamonds are verifiable through the Kimberly Process. Like any bureaucratic process, however, the Kimberly Process isn’t fool-proof. Even if it were, the industry as a whole is so rampant with questionable practices the Gambinos should be taking notes. They may not be blood diamonds anymore, but they’re not spotless, either.
Now introducing: Sh*t Diamonds
You see, legally “clean” diamonds are still coming out of territories where the miners get such a poor price for their diamonds they couldn’t buy a Tic Tac after six hours of work. The sad thing is, I’m only exaggerating a little. Sierra Leone, a former “blood diamond” hotbed, is now producing conflict-free Kimberly verified diamonds, but the small scale alluvial diamond miners can’t even afford clean wells or schools for their villages. True, they’re not getting massacred anymore (as far as we know), but they’re getting paid less than 6 year-old paper boys for a product that costs the consumer $1,000 a karat. Never mind that De Beers has gone to extreme lengths for decades now to purchase every rough diamond they can get their hands on, then sit on them to drive up value.
It’s all very savvy business, and perfectly legal, apparently, but following the law doesn’t necessarily make you any less of an asshole. And I realize bad things happen to disadvantaged people in developing countries everywhere. If you worry about every little injustice in the global market, you’ll never sleep. In this case, however, apathy just makes you an asshole by proxy. We’re not talking about food or clothing. We’re talking about a shiny rock that gets marked up 5,000,000,000,000%* and serves no purpose to the individual consumer other than decoration. And I don’t want to hear any claptrap about the sentimentality. Anything can be sentimental. A particularly Lincoln-esque corn flake can be sentimental. It doesn’t have to cost more than a midsize sedan in order to be valuable.
I know I won’t convince everyone, but that’s why I won’t be wearing any diamonds unless Honey Badger goes and digs one out of the ground his damn self. So, what’s my alternative? Well, in some European nations it’s traditional for both partners to wear a band during the engagement. The diamond ring might come later, either as a wedding ring or an anniversary present. In other words, both partners are tagged as “taken” from the point of engagement and diamonds don’t get involved until such time as either finances allow it or enough time has passed for a diamond to be an appropriate gift. Since I still won’t want a diamond later on, I’m all in favor of posers like Moissanite. After all, I’m not immune to the lure of shiny, shiny trinkets.
*Numbers in blog may appear larger than real life.
Gently Used Foliage 