Sample Chapter

Chapter Two: The Proposal

We’re dreamers, romantics, and Cinderella wanna-bes. We’re girls. We have these elaborate visions of grandeur of how it will be when our Prince Charming asks us to marry him. He’ll come riding in on a sleek, black stallion through a dusky forest, wearing nothing but…okay, okay. I know this isn’t completely realistic, but hey, it’s fun to fantasize.

Ideally, he’ll pick a romantic venue–on the beach at sunset, at a romantic restaurant, or where you first met. My friend wasn’t so lucky. Her man asked her to marry him at three in the morning at a Chevron station. I don’t even think he used premium gas. But, they love each other and I suppose his spontaneity was romantic enough for her. Basically, we really don’t care where you do it guys, it’s just that you DO it.

On the following pages are some fun suggestions on how and how not to propose, that you can photocopy and leave as a hint under his pillow:

Things you SHOULD consider doing:
o Leave her notes and send her on a scavenger hunt to find the ring
o Hide it in her dog’s collar, and then tell her to check its neck because you were just
bitten by a flea (Hey, it’s cute!)
o Drop it in a glass of champagne when making a toast
o Volunteer to help her fold her laundry and miraculously find your missing sock. But
there’s something inside…(At least it’s clean!)
o Slip it on her finger when you are holding hands
o Have a contest and see who can find the most change inside the sofa. Give her the
cushion with the “dough”
o Stay up late at night watching the stars. Ask her if she sees that diamond in the sky,
and if she doesn’t, say, “Oh, wait, I have it right here!”

Things you SHOULD NOT consider doing:
o Bury it in a mound of mashed potatoes
o Tell her to look in the dog food and say, “It now comes in ‘carat’ flavor!”
o Use a slingshot to surprise her from across the room
o Tell her to put a glove on so you can show her your pitching skills
o Pop the question after her day consisting of frizzy hair, a run in her pantyhose, and a
broken heel
o Suggest metal detecting at the beach
o Tie it to a rock and say, “Wow, look at that rock!”

It is a very nice and respectable gesture if your man asks your father, or mother, for your hand in marriage. This practice dates back to about 300 B.C. and men all over the world have been doing it since. In this day and age, and especially in more modernized locations, it’s not required that a man asks for your hand before he proposes to you. It simply shows a great deal of respect for you and for your family. Your parents will be impressed and hopefully, they won’t say “no.” If you know that your parents expect your man to approach them before asking you the big question, please let him know! Even if you don’t have any idea that he will propose, just broach the subject at any appropriate time, and announce it very casually. He’ll be happy you did.

I don’t know how many of you are like me, but do you expect to get asked every single time you go out to a romantic restaurant, and every single time you go away for the weekend? Don’t even get me started on holidays. Once we’ve been exclusively dating someone for a while, we, as emotional and romantic beings, expect that someone to be ready to go to the next step as soon as we are. And when they don’t ask us, we pout. They ask us what’s wrong and we say, “Nothing.” They have no idea what’s going on in our heads, but we’re crying inside and cursing them for not being able to read our minds.

A marriage proposal should be unexpected; we should be surprised. Our men want to see our eyes go wide and our jaws drop. They want us to just sit there quietly while they go through their prepared “speeches” and when they’re through, they hope we’ll say “yes” and throw our arms around them and kiss them until the sun rises.

As my Chevron friend found out, the proposal isn’t always going to be how we’ve dreamt it would be. We just have to go with the flow and make the best of it. After all, the most important thing is that our men are ready to make that commitment to us; they want us to be The One that they call wife, raise children with, and grow old with.
Now to the proposal “speech.” He’ll more than likely have prepared a little soliloquy for you that includes your first, middle and last name, and the words “I love you” and “Will you marry me?” Don’t bother trying to listen. You won’t hear a word. You’ll be so overcome with emotion that all you’ll hear is “blah blah blah…will you marry me?” You can’t tell him what to do, but if you’ve got the chutzpah, suggest to him in advance that when and if he proposes to you, he should write down what he plans to say. My Hubby did just that and I couldn’t be happier that he did. He spent a great deal of time and effort writing his “speech” for me and by God, I was going to hear it.

If he plans to propose to you in public, hopefully he’ll have persuaded someone to videotape the event. Next to the wedding, that’s the one moment you want to remember. Even if your mascara is running down your face and your bra strap has fallen halfway down your arm. A couple of years ago, we were at Sea World watching Shamu and friends do their thing. Halfway through the show, the Hostess called everyone’s attention to the big screens overhead. It was there that I watched a man get down on his knee in front of Shamu and hundreds of tourists, and ask his woman to marry him. I don’t know how she felt, but I got all choked up. Gold star for that guy. The proposal was creative, romantic, and how often can a girl say she was proposed to with a killer whale as her witness?

Do they think we might say “no?” Well, yes. There’s always that slim chance that we’ve been thinking about Life with this guy, and the fact that we aren’t quite ready for that sentence. And we just haven’t gotten around to communicating that to them. Chances are, he’ll know whether or not you want to marry him, and you’ve probably already touched upon the subject of marriage. Men fear rejection even more than we do, and 99.9% of the time they want to be sure we’ll say “yes” before they ask us. And on the off chance you plan to say “no” when and if the proposal occurs, please make sure you are not standing on the edge of a cliff while there’s nobody else around.

Should a woman propose to her man? If you don’t mind being the one to ask, go for it! In some cases, the woman can wait and wait and wait for her man to propose to her. And if he never does get around to it, maybe she’s the one to get down on one knee and pop the question. It really depends on what you want and if you don’t have your heart set on him asking, there’s no reason why you shouldn’t. Do you have to buy him an engagement ring? Probably not, but just to make it fun you might want to give him a ring pop or one of those cheapie rings you can buy at a flea market. If you choose to go this route, remember, you might want to make sure he’s going to say “yes!”
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