are engagement rings necessary?

yesterday i had a lively discussion with friends about the ritual of engagement rings . are they necessary ? are they just as good if they are cubic zirconium?
i do think that engagement rings are an extravagance, but i also know that i would want to get one if/when i get engaged. i hate to admit it, but one of the reasons i would want one is because most women tend to get them from their fiances. i dont need the most expensive one in the shop, but i would like one. at least i admit it. and yes i would like a real diamond. i know its very materialistic, but i do feel this way.
on the other hand, i dont think that i would want a big blowout wedding. if i actually found someone i would want to spend the rest of my life with i would be happy. of course i say this now, but one never know when bridezilla might rear her ugly head. one never truly knows who may turn into a bridezilla.
what ifs are always fun to contemplate, especially when they are the occasional postive what ifs. usually im pondering worst case scenario what ifs.

where's the middle road?

it is so easy for a new baal tshuvah to go the extreme route. the frummer the better. why try to coast and find a heter when one can just blindly follow the strictest view.(yes, i know that all new bts are not like this, but im just trying to make a point) .

in my parents era the accepted view was that women would get married and be stay at home moms while the men would go to work and make a living. these days if one chas v'shalom wants to be a stay at home mom it is quite frowned upon. there just is no middle of the road. whatever happened to doing what is best for ones self instead of abiding to a bunch rules made by who knows who. why does it always have to be the extreme view? why must everyone abide by only one view?

the worst is when certain hair types are in style. the blowout is always in style with curly haired jewish women, but in the outside world sometimes curly perms are in - shirley temple, the 1980's, and sometimes straight is in as in usually. the thing is one was born with a hair type and weather be damned, there isnt always anything one can do about it.

i think that religion is very extreme these days. the frum are moving further to the right and the non-frum are moving more to the left (if this is even possible). we should all be who we are, ultra- orthodox or ultra-reform, but i do think that there are plenty of us who are somewhere in the middle and the middle is okay too. people dont fit into pat categories. the idea is what direction one is headed, not how far the journey. are we all striving to do mitzvot at our own levels?

i never get how people are so all or nothing about judaism. if they dont do everything then why bother? NO ONE is perfect at anything . i guess it takes a certain extreme personality to take the all or nothing approach. then again, all or nothing is the easy way out. doing the best one can is much harder. it requires much more stamina. when one is a do the best one can type, one may have setbacks, but one owns what one does do. its all about where one is going. part of my day job is teaching. ive taught adults, ive taught children. the one thing ive learned is that there are many ways one can reach the same endpoint. everyone doesnt think the same way , one just has to find what works and go with that. one will eventually "get it" . we all have individual hashkafahs that we have to "go with" and this will help us get closer to hashem.