Diary of a Marriage: Faking It.

A brief history of my Meaningful Relationships, in three parts:

Part 1: My first love; we’ll call him Surf Dude. Long hair, rope bracelet, perpetually tan. During our relationship, I wear a rope-and-bead necklace and pretend to love the beach.

Part 2: Then came Social Climber. This gel-haired gentleman relished in bottle service at fancy-schmancy clubs and loved anything with a designer label. During our time together, I wear too much eye makeup and drink Crayola-crayon-colored martinis. (Ew.)

Part 3: Next up: Nomadic Writer, a bearded, pot-smoking philosopher who occasionally practiced meditation and was obsessed with sad, brooding music by relatively unknown bands. While we date, I wear beat-up sandals, chain-smoke clove cigarettes, and don’t brush my hair. We never listen to the radio.

Full disclosure: I hate the beach. I much prefer a temperature-controlled pool. With a hot tub. As for swank clubs, give me a grody dive with plastic pitchers of beer and a dart board on the wall any day. And I’m more comfortable in heels. The really, really high kind. Oh, and I kind of love old-school Britney Spears songs.

And now I’m married to J., sports addict, Pearl Jam fan, Villanova basketball fanatic. For my first basketball game, he bought me a Villanova T-shirt. “Wear this with jeans and sneakers, babes,” he advised. “Trust me.”

I tried on the basketball-game uniform and felt … not myself. I might as well have been wearing a rope-and-bead necklace. I quickly changed into my uniform — a vintage tunic, boots, and heaps of gold bangles that clang noisily against each other — and walked downstairs, steeling myself for J.’s reaction.

He smiled. “You look great, babes.”

Today, I can recite all 16 Big East basketball teams in less than a minute. I’ve grown to like Pearl Jam, and we go to all of their concerts. Sometimes I even sing along. So, it seems, I’m right on track — molding myself into my significant other.

But here’s the difference: It’s still me, this time, just … better. And he’s picked up a bit of me, too: He can now spot a fabulous vintage necklace among a rack of plastic crap at a flea market. He reads my trashy celeb weeklies and we gossip about Brangelina and the latest rehabbing pop princess over dinner. He’s more talkative now, goofier. We’ve grown into each other in a way, learned from each other. Some of his interests I’ll never quite understand (college football?) and I don’t pretend to, and he shies away from some of my hobbies, which is just fine. I haven’t changed who I am — just expanded my borders a bit.

So, this season, you probably will see me at Villanova games, trying to keep pace with all the twists and turns and foul calls and three-pointers — my armful of bracelets clinking and clanking all the way.

How have you and your fiancé or husband taken part in each other’s interests without forgetting about who you are? Share your tips with the rest of us!

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