Posted by Amanda Marcotte February 18, 2008 in Video
People will no doubt think I’m an asshole for laughing so hard at that, but I just hate those flashy public proposals. I suspect a lot of men who do this instead of making it a more private, intimate thing are hoping to rally some public pressure to push a possibly uncertain woman into a yes. And as you can see, this woman is immediately demonized by the crowd, so my theory has that going for it. Good for her for having a backbone.
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Probability that the guy who thought every woman’s heart’s desire was to be proposed to in public, at Valentine’s Day, including a ring she had no opportunity to select, is a Nice Guy ™: 100%
Good for her, not letting herself get pushed into saying yes when she didn’t want to!
I’d think that he’d want to already know the answer was yes if he was going to make such a big deal of the proposal!
I’d say good on her, I’d find that possibly one of the most selfish and coercive acts someone could possibly perform. If he’s reduced your proposal to a mid-game distraction, then I’d say she’s well worth it to be rid of him.
Did anyone else find it hilarious that he was comforted by the mascot?
As someone who would neither want to give nor receive a proposal that way, I especially can’t imagine doing it if you weren’t 110% sure of an acceptance. I also can’t imagine booing someone for saying “no.” I’d probably cringe and make an “oh shit” sound, but christ, it’s hardy her fault that he dragged her out there. As though the fact that he proposed to her on a basketball court somehow obligates her to marry the guy. I’d never thought of it as bullying before, just tacky and inconsiderate, but you’re probably right. And even if a woman was contractually bound to marry the first decent guy who went down on one knee, you don’t exactly know that he is a decent guy just because he bought a ring. For all those morons in the stands know, she could have caught him fucking her sister the day before.
I say good for her, too. Sure, the guy also could be the nicest man in the world, though I somehow doubt it. That doesn’t change the fact that she has a right to say no, and that the only reason the crowd is involved is because the rejected guy decided to make them involved.
I love how the guy walks off the court, comforted by the Rockets’ mascot (what the hell is that, anyway? is it the University of Houston’s Cougar? and what exactly is the mascot saying to him?), and that before he’s even at the stands he’s got a huge beer in his hand.
I feel kinda bad for both of them, honestly.
Did anyone else find it hilarious that he was comforted by the mascot?
Yes. Talk about adding insult to injury.
Deeply funny about the mascot. The commentators are funny, too. Really, it gets funnier the second time through.
I always thought the mid-court proposal is sort of a douche move. Unless they agree before hand.
I support Amanda’s theory that it’s bullying.
I know a coworker who got turned down after he hired one of those airplanes at the beach. I thought that was pretty funny.
I can’t believe people booed. I’m with Cara, I would have done a “oh shit, that suuucks”, but booing HER? Assholes.
Weird that this happened in Houston … again. A similar proposal with refusal happened last year at an Astros game. Crowd booed then too.
So either this guy somehow missed the lesson of that or we have a new performance art troup.
I can believe people would boo; part of why this sort of thing is done is the asker knowing the pressure the crowd will try and provide via boos.
I just feel so bad for her. She looked mortified. I’m also impressed that she was able to leave the floor with some poise. If I’d been in her shoes, I would have tried to run off that floor as fast as possible, and then I would have tripped and fallen flat on my face.
this is besides the main point, which i agree with, but what are the chances this is actually real?
were the announcers talking, before the actual proposal, about the possibility of a woman saying no purely by chance? she also looked right at the camera a few times, and the mascot seemed to be comfortable in hamming it up at the fellow’s alleged misfortune. smells fishy
They booed because she didn’t follow the script: He asks, she says yes, everyone goes “awwwww”. It’s how people think these things are supposed to go, and they almost resent her for putting her future happiness above the sweet ‘n’ happy plot of their real life play.
Also: “But he’s so sweet to have proposed like that! What a cold- hearted bitch!”
Someone gave the guy a beer as he’s walking off the court.
Typical.
Hopefully this will serve as a lesson to all the schmucky dudes out there. This kind of shit is embarassing and coersive, and has got to stop.
it’s scenes like this that make me glad I proposed the way I did: tossed her the ring while we were at the laundromat and said “ya wanna?” and she said “sure, why not?” No pressure, you know? And here we are, still together, six weeks later. I get all teary just remembering.
Jesus Christ, I would be so completely horrified and embarrassed if I’d been proposed to under those circumstances I can hardly even bear to think about it. I literally feel queasy. Good on her for telling that douchebag no.
I’m hesitant to assume that people were booing her.
In a crowd situation like that you can only really express one of 2 things “I think that’s good.” Which sounds something like “WOOHHOOO!!!” or “I think that’s bad.” which sounds something like “BOOO!!!”
They may have been booing him or expressing sadness that it didn’t work out or disappointment or whatever. I wouldn’t assume that it was hatred directed at her.
Yeah, it’s a dick move. I would never propose that way. I’d want her actual opinion.
Sorry, but the whole thing look staged to me; her reaction didnt look real. And the announcer did use the work ‘prank’. Just a publicity stunt is my guess. But I agree that those kind of proposals are nothing but ‘look at me’ on the guy’s part.
My proposal went like this:
Me: Shit, purchasing your own health insurance is really expensive!
Him: Maybe we should just get married now [as opposed to the following year, as we’d loosely planned] so you can get on my benefits.
Me: Really? That would be great.
Rockets crowd: Awwww. [Cheers.]
Just kidding about the last part.
I can’t even understand buying a ring for a woman without letting her pick it out. How patronizing and presumptuous.
If I were booing, I’d be booing him. But I’d probably laugh and point instead.
Also just to swim upstream here in the comments — why does HE have to buy the ring if she gets to pick it out? What’s wrong with surprising her? (Or him, for that matter).
Because if someone is supposed to wear something for the rest of her life, she should like it. Someone can know you up and down and not know what your aesthetic taste in jewelry is like—it’s really too idiosyncratic. That’s my guess. I don’t like wearing rings and don’t want to marry, so it’s irrelevant. When I was engaged, though, I picked the ring. But if she’s the one wearing the ring-leash, it seems the leash-holder should have to pay for it.
Sorry, I hate engagement rings. Wedding rings at least are equitable.
“But he’s so sweet to have proposed like that! What a cold- hearted bitch!”
A disturbingly large number of my female friends would say exactly that. It’s fucking depressing how little most women think they deserve.
Umm, why did she go out on the court in the first place ? Did she think he was proposing a halftime hotdog ? btw, yes a woman should always pick a gift given to her….oh, that’s not a gift….it’s an entitlement, my bad.
I feel bad for the guy, it sucks to get rejected. I don’t really see public proposals as coercive, though I can see how they COULD be I think it is wrong to assume that. They just seem to represent a different understanding of what romance is. For that guy, he may have just thought that doing something REALLY public to show how much he loved her was really romantic.
I mean, my Dad proposed in a Christmas card in front of HIS MOTHER! YUCK!!
But i’m not going to demonize any guy for not always getting what the woman he is with may want. I still don’t get what my man wants all the time, none of us are mind readers This guy has obviously learned his lesson about the public proposals tho.
The facial expressions of the woman were priceless though, the slow transition to OH FUCK WHAT DO I SAY OH GOD. Plust he mascot and the beer. Classic.
I LOVE THIS GAME!
Y’all are terribly presumptuous. For all we know it was his grandmama’s ring, which his grandpappy gave to her at halftime of a Yale-Harvard football game in 1947 . . . and that his father gave to his mother during a timeout at the 1972 baseball All-Star game. He very well could have been carrying out a deeply rooted family tradition.
I happen to think the whole thing had the same general quality of acting typical of a WWE match.
Yeah, my fiance and I both hate those public proposals… so of course before he proposed, he kept teasing me that he was going to arrange for the biggest, most public proposal ever. I’m not big on surprise proposals either, we talked it over first. My sister asked if it was a surprise and I said no, we’d talked about it, and she said: “Yeah, that’s good… some things really shouldn’t be surprises.” That’s pretty much my philosophy too.
So either this guy somehow missed the lesson of that or we have a new performance art troupe.
Oh, PLEASE let it be the latter!! That would be so fabulous.
She had a really big butt
I’m also inclined to think it was a stunt. If not i feel really badly for both of them. Still; gotta love that mascot. Maybe the guy got some sympathy furry sex afterwards?
One of my nightmares has always been to be put on the spot like that. Good on her for sticking by her guns. I would have said yes if only so afterwards, in private, I could renege on the proposal and cuss his ass out for embarrassing me. But the commentator who was going, “What I’d like to see is a woman say no,” and then have it happen and have to go, “You know I was only kidding right?” was the truly funny part for me. It’s like he didn’t want to seem like an asshole by proxy or something.
Clancy, you’re beginning to sound a little like Christopher Walken in Pulp Fiction…
MAJeff:
ReJECTed! With AUTHORITY!!
Okay, I’ll stop now. I really do feel bad for both of them. It was funny, but they’re just 2 ordinary people and they both probably felt pretty humiliated by the whole thing.
It would be interesting to see some backstory on this. From the look on her face–assuming it wasn’t a stunt–I’d say they hadn’t been going out that long and she really wasn’t expecting it. And he certainly had that look of “that effing c***” on his face as he went into the stands, beer in hand.
were the announcers talking, before the actual proposal, about the possibility of a woman saying no purely by chance?
I think they were saying that because that’s the obvious joke. We did public proposals at a job I had once, and that was usually the joke we made amongst ourselves. At my place, the women always said yes, but we usually took a good look at how tense she was during the obligatory hug to guess how much of the ride home they’d actually remain engaged, if you get my drift.
Pesto, Yes, perhaps his father died from dysentery because of that ring! Why shouldn’t she want to wear it?
Thanks Betsy for fixing my stupid typo.
When this happened last August according to the news report the woman “appeared to angrily dump a bag of popcorn on the man before rushing up the stairs amid a chorus of boos.” Performance art or supremely appropriate reaction, you be the judge.
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/sports/5070401.html
Sadly I know of no film of the event to compare the people involved.
Like most people here, I hate the “grand gesture” and think that proposing like this or even in front of any one else puts improper pressure on the person being asked. The only time I would consider a stunt like this is if I knew what the answer would be and knew that that the person I was proposing to actually really wanted a “grand gesture” like that.
All in all, not a bad trade.
hahahaHAHHAHAHAHAHhahahaha
Here’s another great one:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ac3AzaDohd0
Ha-ha-ha-happy valentines day!
And Lee Richards has a really small brain.
Based on the look on that guy’s face afterward, it might be wise for her to have round-the-clock police protection for a while.
Based on the look on that guy’s face afterward, it might be wise for her to have round-the-clock police protection for a while.
The police are under no obligation to protect anyone…
I want to know if she still goes out with him after THAT.
ha … now that would be a story.
#42 [blockquote]Based on the look on that guy’s face afterward, it might be wise for her to have round-the-clock police protection for a while.[/blockquote]
From him or the crowd? It disturbs me how fast she ran out of there following the “No, I’m sorry…”
Couldn’t help but laugh at the melodrama that ensued afterwards. Someone light him a Mandle in remembrance…
hahahahAHHAHAhaha
That was great, here’s another:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ac3AzaDohd0
I can’t even understand buying a ring for a woman without letting her pick it out. How patronizing and presumptuous.
Do you make people take you Christmas shopping, too?
I don’t get the “let her pick out the ring” thing. If you’re just going to talk it over like reasonable people, why do you need a ring? If you’re going to play it by the book, it’s supposed to be a surprise.
Letting her pick out the ring seems like it’s the worst of both worlds. The entire process becomes a mercantile expression of materialism, and you don’t even get the excitement of spontaneity and surprise. Hell, why not have her pick the precise time and place where she gets asked, while you’re at it?
Personally, I took my wife’s stated jewelry preferences into account, but I made the purchase in secret. I don’t see how that’s any more presumptuous than any other time I’ve given a gift. I didn’t specifically know my mom wanted to read that new biography of PG Wodehouse, I just bought it for her. She loved it. getting people things they like is presumptuous? I don’t see how.
I’ll tell ya, if a guy got down on a knee in front of me for a proposal, I’d probably kick him in the face, no matter the surrounding situation. Seriously, this isn’t tv.
(Ok, in the case of this proposal, it was tv…but you get the idea.)
Amanda,
Can we get some bunnies for the MRA?
You can see the idea bulb go off over T-Mac’s head at 1:07: “Drop that zero and get with the hero!”
Pesto: I would have loved to have heard Bill Walton say HORRRRRRIBBBBBLLLLLEEE in the highlights.
The entire process becomes a mercantile expression of materialism,
And where did the “two months’ salary” rule come from? The process is a mercantile expression of materialism.
Better yet, some Chet videos from Weird Science: “How about a nice, greasy pork sandwich served in a dirty ashtray?”
I was in one of those once. But it was in the stands and the tuxedo-ed mascot went up to the happy couple. I was the dude in the background on the jumbotron. Ah, memories.
NotHip: are you referring to Chet? Cause if so, that’s hilarious. How dare those MRA’s suggest that “popping” the question be a suprise? Don’t thiey know that the POP in popping stands for Previously Organized and Planned? No woman has ever wanted spontaneity in a proposal.
“Ha Ha” /Nelson
I just loved the whole thing - the dignity of her exit, the guy being comforted by a giant varmint, the beer, the players trying to restrain their impulse to point and laugh - it’s win all the way.
Chet et al - there’s a huge difference between being surprised by a Christmas sweater, which if I hate I may have to wear six times in my whole life, and being surprised by a piece of jewelry, which I’m supposed to put on my finger immediately and quite possibly never take off again for the rest of my life (call it 50+ years). If you want to make the proposal a surprise, there are other ways to find out what kind of rings she likes. My now-husband, for example, would browse with me at jewelry displays and pay close attention to what I loved and what I didn’t. My engagement ring was a ring that I had exclaimed over and adored, but considered too expensive to be worth buying just for my own enjoyment.
I will also guarantee you that no woman wants to be surprised by a proposal. Surprised by the manner or moment, quite possibly. Surprised that the guy asked because she never considered the possibility? Not hardly.
My grandmother’s first husband used the public proposal of marriage (in her case, a large family reunion, his) to force his proposal down her throat. So shocking that he turned out to be such a manipulative abusive asshole that she managed to get a divorce in an era when such things just weren’t done.
I hate to break it to ya’ll.
1. diamond under 1 carat can be perfectly mass produced
2. diamond wedding ring is pretty modern idea.
So advise for those who is into this for the “investment hedge” just in case he is a jerk. Try to get it at least more than 2.2 carats or so. Size does matters. (I think the biggest industrial grade synthetic diamond is 34 carats. China produces 5 Billions carats synthetic diamonds annually.)
http://www.diamondwholesalecorporation.com/TheHistoryoftheEngagementRing.html
The 20th Century
From 1880 De Beers were able to control the supply (and price) of diamonds but how were they going to control demand during a period when sales began dropping dramatically (up to 50%) in the 20s and 30s onwards through the great depression?
Just as platinum started to become popular in diamond engagement rings, diamonds were becoming less valued. Platinum was banned for all but war use during WWII and so the platinum diamond engagement rings as we know them today almost died out.
The answer to the problem was a new marketing campaign commissioned by De Beers that began in 1947. Perhaps you’ve heard the slogan “A Diamond is forever”? This was to mark the beginning of a change in the history of the engagement ring.
Subsequent campaigns would convince families to hold on to their diamonds as family heirlooms… and it worked! Used diamonds were not being released back into the industry which in turn created the demand that De Beers were seeking.
====
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/11.09/diamond.html
The New Diamond Age
Armed with inexpensive, mass-produced gems, two startups are launching an assault on the De Beers cartel.
“This is very rare stone,” he says, almost to himself, in thickly accented English. “Yellow diamonds of this color are very hard to find. It is probably worth 10, maybe 15 thousand dollars.”
“I have two more exactly like it in my pocket,” I tell him.
He puts the diamond down and looks at me seriously for the first time. I place the other two stones on the table. They are all the same color and size. To find three nearly identical yellow diamonds is like flipping a coin 10,000 times and never seeing tails.
“These are cubic zirconium?” Weingarten says without much hope.
“No, they’re real,” I tell him. “But they were made by a machine in Florida for less than a hundred dollars.”
TapeTum:
I believe the conversation is in response to this comment by Rebecca “I can’t even understand buying a ring for a woman without letting her pick it out. How patronizing and presumptuous.”
Your husband listened to your preferences and selected something he was sure you’d like. But it still sounds like he surprised you.
I find the whole ring thing ridiculous, and I find marriage silly and degrading, but were I to buy someone a ring to present them when I asked them to marry me, I’d never be able to recruit them to come shopping with me first for the ring. That would take much of the romance out of it, in my mind.
Why would I care about Chet’s ideas about proposing? I don’t have to marry him.
I was addressing the person who wanted to make the thread about the woman’s size and shape, and then maundered on about police responsibilities or lack thereof. Thanks for the shitty attempt at reading my mind.
Ooooh… wrong analogy. Women can’t re-gift engagement rings, and taking it back because it’s Fugly can be interpreted the wrong way. Even stuffing it in the back of the closet is usually a non-option.
Sorry, I fall into the “pick it out together” option. When I proposed to my wife, I wasn’t going to trust myself to pick a ring that she would’ve been thrilled to wear for the rest of her life, and frankly, it felt… odd making a choice like that for her. So I got her a nice bracelet as an engagement gift and gave it to her when I proposed. The next day the both of us went ring hunting, and the entire day had me giddy-ecstatic that this woman loved me enough to wear a symbol of that love.
Anyway, turns out I made the right call- she doesn’t like the bracelet and never wears it (and, now that I have a better perspective of my level of taste, I don’t blame her). She absolutely adores her ring and loves all the compliments she gets about it, even seven years later.
Needless to say, I don’t sweat the bracelet.
“will also guarantee you that no woman wants to be surprised by a proposal. Surprised by the manner or moment, quite possibly. Surprised that the guy asked because she never considered the possibility? Not hardly.”
Of course no one wants to be suprised in that manner.
However, telling someone you’re going to ask them to marry you, asking them to pick out the ring, then sitting on it for a month or two while you plan the surprise proposal seems especially ridiculous to me.
Bye, Lee.
“Why would I care about Chet’s ideas about proposing? I don’t have to marry him.
.
.
.
Thanks for the shitty attempt at reading my mind.”
Since you seem to take such offense at being misunderstood, perhaps in the future you may wish to be a little less ambiguous.
I’m with what seems like the majority of commentors: ix-nay on the big old public oposals-pray. To me, it’s a way of bullying your erstwhile fiancee into accepting your proposal, because you’re doing it In Public and With An Audience and if she says “no,” she’ll embarrass you and herself. Probably some men don’t see it that way - they’re carried away with the romanticism of the idea, for which I can forgive them - but as Hector says above, it really smells of Nice Guy ™ to me.
Ugh. All that does is remind me that if one day I do fall in love with someone, and we do talk about getting married, I would assume that by then he’d know me well enough to know I hate surprises, I hate being the center of attention in front of a HUGE crowd, I hate jewelry, I refuse to wear expensive jewelry (because I’ve never regularly worn an expensive piece of jewelry I haven’t lost), I don’t want to get married in a church, and I’d rather not have a huge wedding at all.
In summation, the man who looks over at me one night over the dirty dishes and says, “Hey, want to throw on some sweats this weekend and go to the justice of the peace?” has got the best shot at getting a yes from me.
Am I the only one here who has DONE the public proposal?
I asked her to make it not-yet-legal by engaging in a form of public art known in my hometown as painting the rock. (Which turns out to be harder than it looks.)
She walked the dog past it and was surprised at the manner and timing of the proposal–as well as by the design of the ring that I had made in metals and gems we could afford, after seeing how much she liked the idea of a similar one that was off the map financially.
When we made it legal I spent An Obscene Sum ™ on the one I thought she had wanted in the first place, because I could. She returned it because she had outgrown that vision of What a Wedding Ring Looks Like and it was all just delightful. We love one another and wish to give each other beautiful things, nothing wrong with that.
Why on earth would you propose marriage to someone whose general agreement to the concept you don’t already have, in public? Secret furry feelings for the Rockets mascot?
Here’s what happens when police do ignore their duty.
http://www.local6.com/news/15330073/detail.html
“Hall’s mother, Sherry, said her daughter was concerned about Coffner and informed police.
In fact, Hall said her daughter called police so much that on Jan. 15 they threatened her.
“The police officer said if you call us one more time on him, I’m going to arrest you both,” Sherry Hall said. “So, the day she died, she knew she couldn’t talk to police. So, she handled it herself.”
Michele Karpowicz said everyone noticed the warning signs before the homicide — except police.”
Sorry for the threadjack. back to scheduled mockery
@Nothip
I was thinking all the police in my town have a little thing on their door that says, “To serve and protect.” Nope nothing about protection there.
threadjack and mockery in one.
Back to our regularly scheduled program:
I’m kind of with Chet on the ring thing. I think they’re kind of offensive to my feminism and romantacism. But I can see where some couples find it romantic, but it seems like picking it out together would totally ruin that.
I recall following something like this from thread to thread a while ago, when there were two such well-known ones making their way around youtube. IIRC they weren’t legitimate, they were performance art.
“However, telling someone you’re going to ask them to marry you, asking them to pick out the ring, then sitting on it for a month or two while you plan the surprise proposal seems especially ridiculous to me.”
Every normal couple I’ve ever known who’s gotten engaged has asked the question, usually at the end of a particularly romantic day/date, and then gone ring-shopping together the next day. It’s not like you have to pick between her knowing nothing and the ring not even being the right size and the two of you having sat down and planned the invasion of Poland together.
I think this episode, if real, reinforces a simple rule: you don’t do or say anything to potentially embarass or humiliate your partner, period, ever. (Michelle Obama, are you listening? Sure your husband may have stinky feet and you don’t wanna be near him in the morning, but you don’t laugh and tell millions of people. That doesn’t make you sassy and opinionated, it makes you a rude wanker.)
Ringboy, if legitimate, got what he deserved.
Or you do what my sister’s husband did, which is tell her to go find out her finger size. I went with, and took notes on which rings and what styles she liked. She told him that I was available for consultation, should he desire. I ended up pointing out her top 3, and he chose a small pink sapphire for her. He was thrilled because it was not expensive, she loves it.
He did ask her onstage at a band performance, but he already knew the answer, so - no embarassment, and not pressuring her because she knew it was coming, just not when.
It was really sweet for them.
They weren’t saying ‘Boo,’ they were saying ‘Boo-urns.’
Sour Kraut gets the prize!
It’s a shame, really, that proposal boy didn’t do this at a Toronto Maple Leafs game; Toronto fans seem to accept horrible performances that go nowhere all the time. They’re comfortable with it by now.
Well, here’s how we did it. We talked roundabout about marriage several times, agreed that we were both very interested in it. The proposal came awhile later by surprise, via candy ring pop. The way I knew it was truly different than previous “what if” discussions was that he said that he had talked with both our sets of parents about it (he’s reticent, and we were very young, so for him to have brought it up to our families was a big deal). Later we went ring shopping together, I exclaimed over three or four I liked, and then for Christmas I got another surprise with which one he had picked out.
I think one of them is in for an awkward “Can I come over and get my stuff back” call.
could someone please explain the bunnies concept to me? I have only been reading Pandagon for a few months, so I must have missed the origin of the joke. I get that they are used to shame trollers and MRAs, but how? Sorry for the thread jack. Also, that guy was kind of asking for it.
At the old site, the postings of particularly nasty trolls would be replaced with embedded youtube videos of bunnies.
haha. Thanks
I saw one of these rejections on youtube, and the comments were truly offensive. All “that cunt” and “I’d slap her down” and “why’d she have to embarrass him like that?”
It’s so much nicer over here at Pandagon where women are acknowledged to be human, too.
The process is a mercantile expression of materialism.
That’s what I’m saying. If you object to the paternalistic idea of wearing a ring that essentially marks its bearer as “claimed goods”, it doesn’t seem like the solution to that is to pick out your own ring. It seems like the solution is rejecting the idea of engagement rings in general. Otherwise, aren’t you simply picking out what color shackles you want to wear?
And if you’re attracted to the tradition, which is legitimate - why violate the tradition by picking out your own ring? It’s the worst of both worlds.
And also - if your putative husband doesn’t know you well enough to anticipate your taste in jewelry within some acceptable par, should you be marrying him?
I’m afraid you’ve been had.
This has been done twice before, both times hoaxes planned and executed by the NBA. Both times were in February, right around Valentine’s Day. The first, in 2004 was at a Wizards game; the second, in 2005 was at a Magic game.
It’s really funny when one tries to draw strong conclusions from events, only to have them end up being fake.
Oh my god, those are some mighty fine lulz. I wish I could send the woman a cake. And maybe a bodyguard.
F,
So you’re saying that this is all part of David Stern’s War on Marriage?
That is, if you have a particular taste in jewelery. I don’t. The only thing I can say is that I don’t like diamonds, and that’s it. I don’t really have a style of jewelery that I like beyond that. So that would make it hard for a man to surprise me with something. I could point out what I like/don’t like about a particular piece of jewelry, but it widely varies.But having been there, done that, broken up, I can say that if I go through that again, I don’t want it done in front of anyone, and I don’t want a $2500 ring either. In fact, I’d rather not have an engagement ring - if a guy wants to give me an expensive gift for getting engaged, I’d rather have something more useful, like a Wii (we could play together!). Or something atrociously gaudy in fake stones. I’d rather spend the money on wedding rings than an engagement ring. It just seems so unnecessary to spend that kind of money on something that’s just temporary anyway.
Also, if the ring is expensive, there’s the chance that his debt becomes your debt when you get married, unless it’s paid off by then. If I’m going to be paying it off as well, why shouldn’t I help pick it out?
I could feel sorry for the guy…he didn’t have a clue what the woman’s interests really were. Why was he proposing to her? Gutsy thing to do on a hunch, or just dumb.
But I don’t feel sorry for him…he’ll eventually understand that he is better off with this outcome
or maybe he won’t.
Oooh - BINARY THINKING! I love it. Either you think that the whole ring thing is the human equivalent of a dog peeing on a tree to mark his territory, OR you must be someone who enjoys living out the “tradition”.
Of course, there’s no room in that equation for folks who feel shackled by the tradition itself - the young couple who don’t know any better and think they need to go through all of the motions to make the whole thing “legit” to their family. And who, had they been older, might have just used the money they spent on the ring as part of the downpayment on a house.
I’ll admit it - 13 years ago my lovely wife and I were young and stupid and felt like you needed to do the engagement ring thing to make the whole thing legit. We went to JC Penny’s and she picked out a nice ring that she felt like she’d be able to wear for the rest of her life and that wouldn’t bankrupt us. We also picked out wedding bands at the same time - ones that would complement her engagement ring. Now she barely wears it at all (the stone in it isn’t huge but it still catches on things), though we both still wear the bands.
There are other reasons that you might purchase engagement rings without buying into the entirety of the made-up-whole-cloth “tradition” that DeBeers has foisted upon the American public for the last half century. You might not feel like explaining to everyone why you’re engaged but don’t have a ring. You might like the idea of the engagement ring but not the whole “quick, make a decision that will impact the rest of your life RIGHT NOW” aspect of the fake “tradition”. You might each exchange a token of your engagement (I know a couple where they both exchanged rings - I thought it was kind of a nice twist on the tradition) You might just like jewelry. There aren’t just “two” answers to something like this.
HA! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! When we were dating my wife never wore ANY jewelry. Ever. Rings annoyed her, necklaces chaffed, earrings gave her a rash. Without talking to her about it I never would have been able to figure out her “taste” in jewelry even if I were as observant as Sherlock Holmes.
No rings for me. It’s not about sentiment or blood diamonds or ownership rights or money. It’s all about having seen a de-gloving injury. Ewww. I’m not offering advice; it’s just a personal squick. One of y’all is certainly welcome to wear an extra ring on my behalf.
But for those interested in rings, whatever happened to the time-honored tradition of proffering a bubble-gum machine toy ring, or a cigar-band ring (or facsimile thereof)? All these rituals have to pass my “It’s Sex But Is It Good Sex?” test, which involves a lot of laughter. If it ain’t kinda funny, I ain’t much interested.
My very traditional younger sister, who wanted and rejoiced in all of the trappings of a big surprise engagement and elaborate wedding, thinks I’m the most unromantic soul in the world, because I told her that if I ever marry, I don’t want an engagement ring, I don’t want to be surprised or to be “proposed to”, I don’t want a big wedding or an expensive dress, and if I wear a ring at all it’ll be a plain wedding band. But I don’t think I’m unromantic, just practical. I mean, I’ll melt into a puddle over Colin Firth in Pride and Prejudice as much as anyone, but there comes a point when you have to differentiate between fairy tales and real life. Romance is great and all, but I don’t think spontaneous and spur-of-the-moment are really words that should be applied to the momentous decision of who you’re going to spend the rest of your life with. After all, once you’ve made that decision, you’ve got years to be as romantic as you want, right? And I never wear jewelry anyway - why on earth would I want to wear a huge diamond? Needless to say, although we love each other dearly, much of the time my sister and I just don’t get each other.
When the Maus and I were talking about marriage, he made some noises about not wanting to get married until he could “do it right”. I was confused and asked him what he meant, and he launched into this rambling fever dream of some big showy public proposal and a gigantic rock because “that’s the way it’s done”.
I was horrified and pissed off and told him so. One, I have RA. Rings? Hurt. I don’t care WHO says I need one, I don’t wear them. I will not suffer because “society” says I’m not really married/engaged/whatever unless I’ve got a ring. Two, OMG the money! Why waste the money on some shiny bit of something or other I couldn’t wear anyway? And then there was the idea of the big public proposal. I told him in no uncertain terms that if he did that, the answer would be a loud, firm NO and I would remove him from my life permanently. And probably take his scrotum as a souvenir.
He abandoned those ideas, realizing that he was brought up with some pretty stupid ideas about getting hitched “the right way”.
Our 17th wedding anniversary is Friday.
We picked the proposal time together. He had his mother’s old engagement ring, and I’d bought a him diamond engagement earring. We swapped jewelry and were officially engaged to be married. We didn’t set a date for a good long while, and then when we did finally choose a date, we only gave our families about 10 days’ notice.
My old boss was surprised with an engagement ring the guy had picked out himself—totally gaudy and spangly, not at all right for a pragmatic marathoner. She said “Yes, but I need to exchange the ring,” and did so. Then he left her for his assistant during his wife’s pregnancy. Was it the ring?
F at #84 is right. The NBA does this kind of crap all the time. Of course, they do it to give the fans a safe public forum in which to express their hatred of women, so the fact that it was staged doesn’t really invalidate Amanda’s point. It just changes the angle of approach a little bit.
I don’t know if the announcers were in on it or not. It’s quite possible that they were, hence the somewhat ham-fisted foreshadowing of the “just once I’d like to see the woman say no” comment.
If you object to the paternalistic idea of wearing a ring that essentially marks its bearer as “claimed goods”, it doesn’t seem like the solution to that is to pick out your own ring.
Well, yeah. But no one I think has done that. I picked out my own ring and then, later in life, came around to realizing it’s a leash. I would never consent to wearing one.
Most women who pick out their own would probably object to my characterization. Probably all. I think you’re conflating two things—asshole radical feminist me who calls out engagement rings and women who wear them but pick out there own, who are mainly motivated by taste. Women—we turn out to be pretty diverse.
It’s really funny when one tries to draw strong conclusions from events, only to have them end up being fake.
Were the boos fake? I think that’s the relevant information here—the crowd’s reaction. Did the NBA plant the commenters calling her a cunt? I doubt the NBA is trying to make a grand statement about the suckiness of women. Or maybe, per Dan’s point, it’s a sublimated effort at just that. Well, there you go. It works.
Of course, there’s no room in that equation for folks who feel shackled by the tradition itself - the young couple who don’t know any better and think they need to go through all of the motions to make the whole thing “legit” to their family.
No, there’s room. They’re the second group, the people who are following the tradition. And if they’re following the tradition - because they’re forced into it - it doesn’t make any sense for them to break with tradition and have her pick out her own ring (that he buys.)
13 years ago my lovely wife and I were young and stupid and felt like you needed to do the engagement ring thing to make the whole thing legit. We went to JC Penny’s and she picked out a nice ring
That’s the mindset I’m trying to understand. You felt like you had to cleave to tradition - and then you abandoned the tradition and had her pick out her own ring.
I don’t get it.
Without talking to her about it I never would have been able to figure out her “taste” in jewelry even if I were as observant as Sherlock Holmes.
Sorry, no dice. The only jewelry my wife wears in her entire LIFE has been our wedding rings and her engagement ring, and I still knew enough about her to buy her one that she loves. (On the cheap, too, but I try not to mention that.)
And also - if your putative husband doesn’t know you well enough to anticipate your taste in jewelry within some acceptable par, should you be marrying him?
Expecting someone to predict your taste in jewelry is expecting someone to be able to shit gold, I fear. That’s really unreasonable. It assumes, incorrectly, that it’s easy to determine someone’s aesthetic tastes following a few simple rules. Not at all. Most people work purely on gut, and it’s impossible to put rhyme or reason to it.
It’s not like taste in movies or music, which are a little easier to figure out through lots of exposure. And even then it’s not possible to anticipate someone’s every move. I could probably tell you whether my boyfriend would like a movie or a band after watching some of it, but I wouldn’t buy him clothes, no way. I mean, besides T-shirts.
So either this guy somehow missed the lesson of that or we have a new performance art troup.
YES. Which reminded me of the wonderful Improv Everywhere and their “Proposal On The Subway” mission.
And to contribute to the problem I lament…
A classmate of mine proposed to his now-wife in the parking lot after class. He got down on one knee and took her hand. Told her how much he loved on, et cetera. He took her graduation ring off of her finger. Asked “Will you marry me?”. She said yeah. He then put the graduation ring back on her finger. And she continues to wear it as a wedding ring.
Now, I know that as a card-carrying Patriacrhy Blamer, I ought to say that if you HAVE to give a girl a ring-shackle in the first place and you’re a broke college student in an over-priced world, then this isn’t the worst idea eer. But then there’s this terrible side of me that says hot damn that is some tacky business right there.
It’s hard to be a girl these days.
Or, maybe you’re sufficiently fond of the ring tradition (or of jewelry in general) that liking the ring is more important than the comparatively-minor part of the tradition regarding who chooses it. Traditions aren’t these zero-sum things where if you don’t follow every aspect of it to the letter there’s no point in doing it at all.
Me, I don’t like maraschino cherries. That doesn’t mean there’s no point in having a sundae without one.
The one time I was proposed to the woman gave me a bell. The relationship did not work out, but I have always really appreciated the pun.
I think the thing is, Chet, that more and more people are changing traditions, and making their own, in order to suit their own beliefs.
So if you like jewelery, and the idea of wedding sparklies, but think “Man, I’d like a say in the thing that’ll be attached to me forever”, why not rework tradition in a way that you’ll both be happy with? Society isn’t going to crash and burn because people are willing to be a little more cooperative and complex in their relationships and what they want out of them.
Tangential question: is there an easy place to buy cheap mass-produced diamonds? I think diamonds are pretty. Not pretty enough so that I’d want to pay cartel prices for them, but if they only cost a few dollars I’d probably buy some.
I guess I must have missed something in the tradition of engagement rings. Everyone I know - including my parents - picked out their rings together. Of course, my parents’ generation was the first in our family to have an “wedding ring set” my grandparents all having plain bands.
Mr. Gaia and I looked at rings quite a bit before he proposed and he realized (as did I) that it’s impossible to pick the right ring until you see it actually on your hand. So he proposed (which did surprise me, I had figured he never wanted to make it legal and was deciding if I wanted to buck my parents’ tradition enough to stay with him) and then a week or so later we went to pick out the rings.
And given that we were poor college kids, it went on his credit card, which I then helped to pay off. Which, actually, also follows the family tradition (my parents didn’t use a credit card, but they paid it off installments with the jeweler - my mom still has her payment card).
I believe the tradition referenced is the idea that a woman wears a ring when she is engaged to be married. It’s the fact that she’s wearing a ring that “makes things ‘legit’”, in society’s eyes. Not that I understand why you’re so against messing with a “tradition” that’s, what, less than a hundred years old?
And also - if your putative husband doesn’t know you well enough to anticipate your taste in jewelry within some acceptable par, should you be marrying him?
I would venture to say that a lot of women (certainly not all, but a sizeable number) don’t actually have a defined taste in jewelry. I know that I don’t.
I come from a middle-class background: not poor, not rich. I was educated at an upper-class school through the generosity of grants and scholarships, but my family never had the kind of money that enables a girl to go out and shop for actual gem-quality jewels often enough to develop a definitive taste (note: I would venture that most people’s taste in gem-quality jewels differs from their taste in costume jewelry, even if they wear the latter far more often than the former). I couldn’t describe my own tastes in jewelry to a potential mate, and if he tried to estimate my taste in gems based on what I wear, he’d probably get it wrong: I wear the rings that I keep constantly because they were my mother’s and have sentimental value, not because they appeal to me aesthetically. So even someone who was well-acquainted with my modest collection of jewelry would be likely to choose something that’s not to my aesthetic taste if they judged based solely on that. My taste in other types of art or design is unrelated to my choices in jewelry: I choose Asian-inspired pieces for my home, but I don’t particularly like most Asian-inspired jewelry. I know rings that I like ‘when I see them’, and can think of no good predictors of whether I would like a ring other than that very vague ‘like it when I see it’ criteria.
I think that taste in jewelry is so subjective from person to person, and often so poorly defined, that it’s not a bad idea to go ring shopping together after a proposal has taken place. That way, everyone’s happy. What’s not to love? I think that the idea of choosing a ring together so that it suits both people (or even designing a ring together after a proposal) is romantic enough to offset notions of tradition dictating that the woman not get a choice. A woman might still wear the ring even if she disliked it aesthetically, because of her sentimental attachment to it (as is the case with me and my mother’s rings), but why not please all parties by doing what seems like the simplest thing?
I smell fraud. It’s pretty obvious.
But it does do a good job at reflecting the pressure and obligation the proposee must feel from such a giant public spectacle. I probably wouldn’t be able to handle it.
My fiance actually proposed to me twice - first in the privacy of our home, then the silly public proposal at my workplace with the ring (which I did pick myself - he admitted from the start that he had no clue what I would like, and I appreciated the honesty).
I doubt that these public proposing half-brainers have the scintilla of awareness to contemplate what a coercive gesture the public proposal amounts to. What mostly flits through their pea-sized brains is how romantic they think they’re being. How bowled over his victim/proposeé will be at his bold proclamation of love in front of everyone. Yes, she will swoon at my awesomeness!!
When I proposed to my wife, it never occurred to me to have a ring handy. Just as well, since I had about 50 bucks to my name at the time. Good thing, too, since, unbeknownst to me, she had always planned to wear her mother’s wedding ring. She and I picked out one for me.
I doubt that these public proposing half-brainers have the scintilla of awareness to contemplate what a coercive gesture the public proposal amounts to. What mostly flits through their pea-sized brains is how romantic they think they’re being. How bowled over his victim/proposeé will be at his bold proclamation of love in front of everyone. Yes, she will swoon at my awesomeness!!
When I proposed to my wife, it never occurred to me to have a ring handy. Just as well, since I had about 50 bucks to my name at the time. Good thing, too, since, unbeknownst to me, she had always planned to wear her mother’s wedding ring. She and I picked out one for me.
I got engaged about 2 months ago. I’m living in Austria, where both men and women often wear engagement rings and wedding rings often come in matching sets. We talked about getting engaged ahead of time, which was smart I think. Call me unromantic, but the idea of shocking my girlfriend in public doesn’t really do it for me. We don’t have much money. We bought each other matching engagement rings that cost about $40 each, and we both think that the matching wedding rings that are currently trendy are not so nice. So, we’re buying nice rings for each other that aren’t typical wedding rings, and keeping it under a few hundred euros each, and paying together. I don’t think it’s unromantic at all, and shopping together for the rings is fun.
“That’s what I’m saying. If you object to the paternalistic idea of wearing a ring that essentially marks its bearer as “claimed goods”, it doesn’t seem like the solution to that is to pick out your own ring. It seems like the solution is rejecting the idea of engagement rings in general. Otherwise, aren’t you simply picking out what color shackles you want to wear?”
I’d wager most people who see engagement rings as tokens of ownership or leashes or what have you wouldn’t want to give or wear them. Most everyone who’s at that point didn’t start out there, though–they went through their own periods of expecting to get or give someone a ring at some point. They also usually understand that theirs is not the more common mindset, that most people are still thinking of the ring as What’s Done, and that they and most everyone else they know either has or had certain minimum expectations in regards to it.
We didn’t come to the conclusion that rings weren’t really where it’s at and then simultaneously lose all awareness of why another woman might want one and what she might expect from one.
“And if you’re attracted to the tradition, which is legitimate - why violate the tradition by picking out your own ring? It’s the worst of both worlds.”
Most people who are rolling along under the unexamined societal assumption that engagement = ring aren’t thinking “The world will devolve into chaos and anarchy if I sell my virginity for anything but a giant shiny princess cut solitaire diamond in white gold. It will be like unto Thunderdome if the ring does not also have several accent stones.”
They aren’t–consciously, at least–entering into that sort of arrangement with those sorts of expectations. If you suggested that the ring was hymen collateral, and that way the woman would be compensated for her loss of marriage value if the man slept with her and then failed to marry her, most people today would probably be at least weirded out. That’s not how society works anymore, and that’s not what they think they’re doing, even though that’s about as traditional a ring-function as you can get.
If you ask most people today if it’s tradition that the guy picks out the ring without input, a lot of people are going to say no. Saying that the guy has to pick out the ring, otherwise you’re breaking with tradition is going to get you weird looks. The “tradition” surrounding engagement rings is fairly shallow and fluid. It’s become accepted that you need the ring for it to be “real,” but more specific tropes (the ring’s value, the stones and settings used, etc.) have far less traction. A fair amount of the population sees them as superfluous so long as you have the basics down.
“And also - if your putative husband doesn’t know you well enough to anticipate your taste in jewelry within some acceptable par, should you be marrying him?”
As others have pointed out, taste is very idiosyncratic. On top of that, though, this is a ring the woman is expected to wear all the time, for the rest of her life. You want it to be not only something she thinks is pretty, but something that she’s comfortable wearing so much.
Even if a your partner could pick out the jewelry you’d find gorgeous 99 times out of 100, s/he might not be able to pick out the jewelry that you’d find gorgeous and could be comfortably worn for long periods of time and would hold up well under daily wear. It doesn’t seem reasonable to hang someone’s acceptability as a life-partner on their ability to get it right without feedback.
So, big news here… Zac and I have adopted a NEW KITTEN! She’s a tortie, five months old, almost painfully adorable. I’m sure I’ll be uploading pictures soon. I tried to introduce her to Vergil today (she’s been locked in Zac’s room all weekend), and he was all “… friend?” and eager to play but she was totally skeptical, so we’re separating them again for a bit.
Oh dear, now this is just embarrassing. Captcha messed me up and I screwed up the cut-and-paste of my comment with an email… I am obviously techno unsavvy. Please feel free to delete the above, I’m going back under my rock now.
I was trying to type a quote from Arrested Development:
George Michael: “I got you a wedding ring… tone.”
I proposed right in front of this:
http://flickr.com/photos/pugwash00/2242330763/
I didn’t plan it, we kind of just happened to be standing there.
wren - yay! Kitty!
Wren, congrats on the new kitty!
Wren, don’t feel bad for messing up copy and paste. That’s a really cute story, even if it’s not on topic.
We just got a new kitty too. She’s a cute little Siamese and she and our other cats are still adjusting to her, but I think they’ll all be good friends. I love kitties. We should have a cat thread.
Wren,
I thought it was just an alternative engagement story! It’s cute, and congrats on the kitty.
Caren,
Do you mean engagement kittens instead of rings, or getting engaged to cute tortie kittens? Both sound cute.
For a while, with the way that it was portrayed in media, I thought that “the way” to propose was in some sort of public place. Maybe not in a stadium in front of thousands of people, but at least fancy restaurant or some other romantically-planned outing.
But yeah, stadium proposals and the like have always creeped me out because of the bullying/pressure factor. It’s hard enough to turn someone down when they’ve just shelled out a crazy amount of money, but to do so in front of a bunch of people who are going to watch you turn down someone who just shelled out a bunch of money for you must require some serious ovaries.
That said, when I was proposed, it couldn’t have been in a more private way (well, maybe if he’d proposed while I was on the can). In fact, I had to dance a bit when people asked me during the engagement how he proposed. So there is such a thing as “too private” because I’ve learned that people invariably want “the story.”
This may or may not have been a fraud. Even the YouTube frame embedded in the post has other examples of public rejection.
I’m really confused as to why anyone would think that proposing in a sports arena would be a good idea. Who are you trying to impress - your proposee or the rest of the crowd? If the former, why? Shouldn’t she already be pretty impressed with you? If the latter, well, need I continue? If she refuses, are you going to break up with her? Why or why not?
One would think that a few minutes’ honest thought over these questions would discredit these notions.
The whole proposing thing strikes me as a crusty remnant of medieval times. Shouldn’t two people considering a life together actually have several cogent discussions about it rather than have a guy foist the idea on the woman?
If this (or similar) is a performance art thing, I would love to know the name of the artist/group. I’ve poked around but can’t find any performance artists taking credit.
On the other hand, if it isn’t fake, it’s telling that so many people want to think that it is.
I feel bad for both of them. I can’t read their minds, so I can’t assume he proposed publicly to try to pressure her into saying yes. I also can’t assume she had no idea he wanted to marry her.
It’s too bad because it looked like that was pretty traumatic for both of them. She probably hated being put on the spot, and he probably felt like an ass for trying to propose in public and getting humiliated. Not to mention that the person he decided he wanted to spend the rest of his life with just said “no thanks.” Even if he did set things up to try to pressure/persuade her, he still has to deal with a pretty painful rejection. It is admirable that she decided to be honest with him.
Never do this kind of thing in a public format unless the probability of acceptance has already come as close to 100% as humanly possible. Never do this kind of thing as a “persuading tactic”, because it almost never works and even if it did, it wouldn’t be a good start to a marriage.
The guy looked like he was going to be calling in sick to work for a few days.
But the cynic in me says he’ll get some dates out of it…
I think people want to believe it’s fake b/c they’ve been taught women are desperate for the ring, and if a guy would offer it, why would any woman reject it?
The YouTube comments went along the vein of she should say “yes” in front of the crowd and then say “maybe not” later in private. Protect the guy’s ego, you know. B/c protecting his image is far more important than being honest.
Well, that was the gist of the ones that weren’t talking about “smaking that cunt” because “bitch deserved it” for embarrassing the guy in front of others. Slut’s lucky one guy ever proposed.
No one talked about how the proposal might have embarrassed her. How perhaps she took the whole marriage thing a bit more seriously.
No, it’s all about protecting the guy’s honor, and how she’s the one in the wrong for embarrassing him. And for that crime, she must be punished and labelled.
IBTP.
We should, in fact, return to the old traditions for those who want to give, receive and wear engagement rings.
As Emily Post said: “It is doubtful if he who carries a solitaire ring enclosed in a little square box and produces it from his pocket upon the instant that she says “Yes,” exists outside of the moving pictures!”
If a person proposes to another, the proposal should take place without a ring. In fact, I don’t understand the whole “ring-as-shorthand-for-proposal” thing–ring in an ice cube tray! ring on a pizza box! ring suddenly placed on your finger!
If the proposal is accepted and a ring (or rings) desired, the ring should be purchased together, in consultation with the taste of the one who will wear it. Discreet men used to visit the jeweler ahead of time and indicate their price range, in which the jeweler would provide a range of choices. However, frank conversations about money and aesthetics are a part of married life, and engaged couples may wish to start practicing early.
Also, I vote for a return to colored stones, pearls, and aestheticism to the engagement ring, which has sadly devolved into a banal exercise of who’s-got-the-biggest-diamond.
Hey, if we’re talking public engagement kittens…
http://icanhascheezburger.com/2008/02/14/
The girl was hot.
Ya, she can do better. lol
FWIW, the Washington Wizards had something like this go down a couple of years ago, and it turned out to be fake.
Wouldn’t surprise me if the puppy gymnastics team bailed on the Rockets at the last minute, and they had to whip this up as a replacement non-game diversion…
Wow, how fun and edgy for the NBA to take a leaf from the WWE with the woman as Villain and the man as “Face”. There’s nothing like a little burst of misogyny to get the crowd pumped up!
I think “staged” just because of the mascot thing.
Also, I loved my engagement ring because it was a jerk-repellent, as well as a beautiful item of jewelry (hand-crafted fair-trade amethyst). I still wear it on my right hand because it is so lovely and it makes me smile.
Last Thursday DW and I were out to dinner with another married couple (Valentine’s Day is their wedding anniversary awww!). Toward the end of the meal I pulled a Merovingian (’I drink too much wine, I must take a piss’) and, as I stood up, noticed my shoe was untied. So I went down on one knee, tied my shoe, and went off to the head. When I got back to the table they all started laughing; DW leaned over and told me that when I went to tie my shoe all of the surrounding tables thought I was proposing. They had all craned their necks to watch the freak show…talk about anticlimactic.
“Sirkowski February 19, 2008 at 1:45 pm
The girl was hot.
Ya, she can do better. lol”
he is a bit short. don’t you think?
Ha ha!: he instantaneously has, like, a 128-ounce beer — which, seemingly, was provided by the mascot, who had presumably foreseen such a contingency. There there, big guy, the mascot seems to say, though not without a certain cruel glee. It’s gonna be aaallll right.
Awkward declaration > stinging humiliation > comforting words of those who don’t really give a shit/actually find it amusing > large beer
Ah, such a timeworn trajectory!
She looked pretty traumatized, too, poor gal. The guy’s a douche, but how can you not feel sorry for him. You could practically see the snotty whites of egg dripping off his sorely embittered chin as he manfully struggled to appear not to notice.
Brutishly jeering reaction from a crowd at a sporting event? Well now. The world’s gone all topsy-turvy, hasn’t it!
Oh haw haw! It does get funnier on each viewing. As she scoots off the stage, she looks like she planted on him a live shit bomb and wants to get away quickly before it explodes!
I think the thing is, Chet, that more and more people are changing traditions, and making their own, in order to suit their own beliefs.
By all means, get engaged in the way that fits your own beliefs.
On the other hand, when we get engaged in the way that suits our beliefs, please have the courtesy not to refer to those beliefs as, and I quote, “patronizing and presumptuous”. Or, alternatively, if you choose to characterize my beliefs in that way, don’t get all bent out of shape when I describe the contrary view as muddled and nonsensical.
“I’m really confused as to why anyone would think that proposing in a sports arena would be a good idea.”
I know a couple who really loved the Chicago Blackhawks (and hockey in general). He did propose to her with one of those billboards that said “Will you marry me, [woman’s name]?” However, they had discussed it and it absolutely was a yes, So for them, it wasn’t pressure at all. But I can definitely see how in this dynamic, the guy appeared to be hoping that the pressure of the crowd would entice her to say yes.
Chet, I don’t think the idea of surprising the woman with a ring the man picked out is especially traditional. As Miss Manners explains:
The surprise ring dates
from when the gentleman was likely to produce a family ring, and it fell into abeyance when gentlemen without family jewelry were nevertheless deemed eligible. Sensibly, then the proposal came first; sometime subsequently, the lady was taken to choose from a variety of rings that the gentleman had put aside as meeting his budget.
Now that producing a ring is considered central to the drama of a proposal, it has become a package deal.
When my father proposed, he gave my mother a family ring but offered to have the stone re-set if she didn’t like the style. I think Miss Manners has hit it on the head — the idea of buying a surprise ring is a new-fangled idea, part of the scripted, showman-like aspect of romance and weddings in America today.
“On the other hand, when we get engaged in the way that suits our beliefs, please have the courtesy not to refer to those beliefs as, and I quote, “patronizing and presumptuous”.”
Is it really a we/our thing if half the couple is left out of the loop?
Might Ponygirl
Ha! My sister has a similar story. It’s wasn’t quite as intimate a moment as the one I think you are hinting at, but it happened by accident, when they were in bed together. He’d been planning on asking her; in fact already had the date and time all set up. Then they were (not quite) arguing one night because of something he said that made sis feel like maybe he wasn’t all that into her after all, and he just sort of blurted out that he wanted to get married, and don’t you?
She swore us bridesmaids to secrecy (ha!) bc he would be embarrassed, but I thought it was really sweet and a lot more genuine than a big production. I think he “officially” asked her on the date he had already planned for, and that’s the story she probably tells everyone else.
Is it really a we/our thing if half the couple is left out of the loop?
In what sense do you think my wife was left out of the loop? It’s not like I surprised her with the whole thing - we talked about marriage, we’d occasionally talked about engagement rings that she would “hypothetically” like, she estimated her ring size, and when I finally popped the question - in an extremely obvious place for a proposal - she basically said “duh, of course.” And she thought the ring was great. She literally had every available input into the process short of pointing at one and saying “buy that.”
Now who, exactly, is exhibiting binary thinking? There’s a space between “I picked a ring with absolutely no input from you or consideration for your tastes” and “yes, I’ll marry you; now let’s go pick out the ring you’re going to buy me.”
Picking out your own ring is like getting cash for Christmas. Sure, it meets the bare minimum the situation requires; but something is definitely lost. An interpersonal connection. A chance to prove that you really can get a sense of another person’s perspective. And if your partner literally can’t be relied upon to buy one piece of jewelry for you without you hovering over his/her shoulder, is marriage really in the cards for you at that point? Shouldn’t the other know you a little better than that?
And if your partner literally can’t be relied upon to buy one piece of jewelry for you without you hovering over his/her shoulder, is marriage really in the cards for you at that point? Shouldn’t the other know you a little better than that?
That seems a little shallow. My husband gets my taste generally right more often than not, but misses a significant amount of the time and is perfectly fine with my returning said misses for things I pick out myself. Taste does not equal worldview; an inability to predict my taste in fripperies doesn’t make him any less intelligent, kind, funny, and flexible, and those are the qualities I married him for.
Chet, it is still binary thinking because you are saying that couples should either perform the engagement ring ritual in a certain way or dispense with the whole thing altogether.
And if your partner literally can’t be relied upon to buy one piece of jewelry for you without you hovering over his/her shoulder, is marriage really in the cards for you at that point?
Except that it’s not just one piece of jewelry. It’s something that the woman is expected to wear every day for the rest of her life — to the point that many women can’t even get the damn thing physically off their bodies. So picking out this item is an extrremely personal decision. To each their own, and I am happy for you and your wife, but I couldn’t imagine my husband picking something out that I would have to wear every day. And we know each other pretty well, having lived together for 13 years.
Chet, I also assume that you dispensed with the bridal registry since it would be inappropriate for you and your wife to pick what gifts your guests would give you.
(I should note that I am quite pure in all respects since I didn’t have an engagement ring or a bridal registry.)
Chet, that isn’t really what you suggested happened at first…
Thinking that you surprised her with the ring isn’t binary thinking, it’s what you initially said you did. You were pretty explicit about not “talk[ing] it over” and actualling “surpris[ing]” her. And yet, obviously, you did “talk it over like reasonable people.” As far as I can tell, the only difference between what you did and what you were initially complaining about is that she just wasn’t physically there with you when you bought the actual ring.
Try being clearer next time and drawing fewer thin lines between things that are in the end pretty much the same, and people will be less likely to think you did something you didn’t do.
No we think it’s fake because: the announcers telegraphed it. The mascot was ready to comfort him with a beer. it took place on the court and not up in the stands.