i was watching an ad for some kind of tv show or something last week (i've been told my mind is a sieve, and this beginning may give you a clue as to why!). anyway, the only bit i remember is a man proposing to his beloved in front of an audience full of people. and it struck me that this wasn't a particularly nice thing to do.
it's something that's pretty hollywood - the hero going down on bended knee in a crowded restaurant, or having his proposal announced at a baseball match as tens of thousands of screaming fans watch on. i'm sure you remember many such similar scenes. and it's always presented as some kind of super romantic thing.
but really, i see it more as a kind of harassment. ok not in 100% of cases, but it seems to me that the main purpose of the public proposal is to put pressure on the other person to say yes, or to make it that much more difficult for her to say no due to the general embarassment it would cause for herself and for the person who was asking.
i guess it wouldn't be as bad if you were absolutely sure your partner was going to say yes - but then how can you be absolutely, completely, totally sure? people can change their minds for any number of reasons, in the space of hours or even minutes. what they thought was a wonderful idea in for months on end might suddenly not seem such a good idea, and suddenly they're not interested in marriage any more.
maybe i'm just an arch-cynic who doesn't have a romantic bone left in her body. but a public proposal does not seem like a good idea to me.
5 comments:
Not sure about it being harrassment, but I agree it's a spectacularly bad way to propose. I think it makes what should be a mutually special moment between two people into an ego-trip for the person proposing. "Look at me and my grand gesture!"
My (now ex-) step father proposed to my mother at her birthday party, in front of all of our friends and family. She said yes, but I remember very clearly the look of sheer panic on her face. She felt like she had no other option...and the ex- part at the start of this story tells you how it all ended up.
My husband and I, pre-decision to marry, always assured each other that should either of us take it into our heads to make a public proposal, they should do so in the full understanding that the other person would tell them to fuck off. It is a form of harrassment - it's deliberately putting someone in a situation where there is huge, huge social pressure to say yes, no matter what their actual thoughts. That's creepy.
Of course, I've always been of the opinion that if you have to do the whole proposal thing with genuine uncertainty about the answer, instead of just having a discussion about whether marriage is a good idea, you're sort of starting out on the wrong foot anyway - sure, it's romantic, but it's not very practical.
Lucy, my now-husband and I had the same conversation about public proposals. For me a proposal of marriage (or civil union or similar) is about just two people, really, and so I don't get the point of doing the big public thing. Maybe if there are kids involved as well you might include them in discussion, but otherwise I don't get it. I don't understand why you would want to put your relationship under a massive microscope like that, with a whole lot of people who really have nothing to do with you.
I know a woman who was engaged four times, to four different men, prior to her engagement to the man she married. I don't know the ins and outs of all of these engagements, but I know that in at least one case it was a matter of saying yes when asked to avoid hurt feelings, and then discussing it further the next day and coming to a no.
On the other hand, I've just remembered two friends who got engaged after he hired a plane to do the whole banner in the sky thing. Even though that's a big public thing in one way it's actually surprisingly intimate in another - no one else needs to know who the proposal is for and from.
I know a woman who was engaged four times, to four different men, prior to her engagement to the man she married. I don't know the ins and outs of all of these engagements, but I know that in at least one case it was a matter of saying yes when asked to avoid hurt feelings, and then discussing it further the next day and coming to a no.
I have a friend who was engaged a similar number of times, and dumped her fiancees on a practically timetabled basis. I could never quite work out what she got out of it, since actual marriage was never on the horizon.
Even though that's a big public thing in one way it's actually surprisingly intimate in another - no one else needs to know who the proposal is for and from.
That's a bit different though - you could organise it so that you were alone with the questionee when they saw it. It still comes with some elements of pressure, since it's a lot of effort to go to, but it doesn't have, as you say, the public element.
I also find it interesting how people are so into weddings and things like hens evenings and even baby showers. Stuff like that didn't happen with my friends in the 80's, 90's. And the planning - i now know 3 women who are constantly talking about their wedding plans. I know you have to book places ahead but there is some serious OTT stuff going on and expensive. And pre wedding events are happening such as school balls are 'in', where girls are spending heaps on dresses. Again we had a school dance but nothing like hiring limos etc, like is happening in my town. It's like we are adopting episodes from bad American tv shows into our culture here
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