Just ask for what you want. I requested a six-month break from Facebook to visit my parents; I asked to switch projects. I told my husband it was time to get married after six years of dating!

Engineers love to optimize problems. Now I optimize logistical problems. I ask: 'What's the goal? What are our constraints? What is the optimal, elegant way to get to that goal within those constraints?' I break it down in terms of a data funnel: 'Where in the funnel are we inefficient?' That analytical background really helps.

All I want to do really is get married and be a matriarch.

If I get married, I want to be very married.

I want to get married and have children and live happily ever after. That's important to me.

Just because you're of the same sex, what difference does it make? Get married to whomever you want.