It was a Sunday in March of 2000.
I was in bed watching "Sunday Morning". My girlfriend at the time walks back into the bedroom from taking a shower with a blue bag in her hand and starts pacing back n forth.

I asked what was wrong and she told me that she had something to tell me but didn't know how.

I then asked what was in the blue bag....and she threw it at me and said, "That's for you. Open it."

I stuck my hand in and took out a little blue velvet ring box. I opened it and there was a ring with five little diamonds across the rim.

I thought she'd purchased a really expensive ring for herself and realized that she went a little overboard with spending (since her credit was horrible).

So I told her, "It's no big deal. Just take it back. In fact, we'll go today, okay?"

She said, "No STUPID! It's for you! Are you gonna marry me or what?"

Romantic, eh?

I almost got married once. Seriously. But it was an immigration thing, and the proposal went something like "Oh shit oh shit oh shit I'm going to be deported if you don't marry me!" And I was going to do it, too. But fortunately, he feel in love for reals the next month, and I didn't have to.

*wipes sweat from brow*

"He feel in love for reals the next month" would have made more sense if he was Russian and I was mocking his accent.

I started to following conversation one morning:

“I want to spend my life with you”
“Does that mean get married?”
“I think so”
“Well I want to”

I ask people to marry me all the time in IRC. So far, no takers.

My buddy just got engaged, here is his corny story (as told by his new fiance):

On Friday night, P___ picked me up to take me out for a birthday dinner. He had told me the location was a surprise, and just to be ready at 6:05pm! We drove off, into the sunset, on McDowell Road, and then headed towards South Mountain. I was a little slow with my guesses of where we were headed. I must admit, my first guess was Chipotle! :) (For those of you who don't know, P___ is a Chipotle addict!) However, as we got closer, I asked him, "Are we going to The Farm?" He grinned at me, nodding his head.

The Farm is a place that P___ and I have been going to since our Freshman year of college. In the past, we always had lunch at the ___ Kitchen, eating sandwiches on picnic tables under the pecan trees, watching little kids run around in the open grassy areas. However, this night, we continued on to the house at the back of the property where The ____ Restaurant and Wine Bar is located.

We got out of the car, and started to walk towards the restaurant. We walked under an archway that was the entrance into the yard in front of the restaurant, when P___ said, "Hang on one sec." I thought he may have forgotten something in the car. He reached into his pocket and said, "I made you something." He pulled out a circular piece of cardboard on which he had pasted a photograph of me as a little girl. He said, "Our story starts with you as a little girl." This piece of cardboard had twine tied to it, and he pulled the piece of twine and out of his coat pocket comes the next piece of cardboard, with a photo of his as a little boy pasted onto it. Next was a picture of me with my friends, and after that a picture of me and his friends. With each photo, he told the story of our lives. Us getting to know one another, and getting to know each others friends. Then came a picture of my Master's graduation, and him telling me that he was proud of my accomplishments and thankful that I supported his accomplishments (a picture of his [workplace] desk!). Then pictures of us in NY representing the trips we have taken together, and pictures of us at SF Giants games and snowboarding in Tahoe, representing the fun we have had. (Right about here, I started getting tears in my eyes. It was here that I really realized where this was going!!!) From here he told me that he cherished all of these memories, and that he wants to make more memories with me. He pulled on the twine from all of these pictures and out of his pocket came the ring, tied to the twine! He got down on his knee, held out the ring, and asked me to marry him!!!! I believe my exact words were, "Of course!" He then said, "Look at the ring!" I did, and I said again, "Yes!"

After the tears, hugs, and kisses, he said, "Ok. Turn around. Let's go have dinner with your parents, my parents, and Friend1 and Friend2!" With these words, I started to cry again. He had arranged to have these most important people in my life, here, for this moment. They were far enough away so I didn't see them when all of this was going on. They could see us, but not hear us. (They said when P___ kept reaching into his pocket, they thought he lost the ring!) He had met with my parents earlier in the week to ask for their blessing, so they knew what was going on. And he had told Friend1, and she flew out to AZ from NY to be there. But everyone else was told it was a birthday party! Although, people clued in to what was going on, some even before that night! :)

After hugs were given and pictures were taken, we drank champagne and had a fine meal, celebrating our futures together as a family.

We were having dinner at our usual haunt, & I was buzzed on red wine. It was when everyone was flocking to CA to get married while same sex marriage was still happening. We were talking about it and I asked her if she'd marry ME. She goes, "eeYEAH." like, hell yeah, ya dingbat! I gave her a ring about a month later and about a year and a half later we exchanged vows.:D

heh, my anonymizing was very half-assed. Oh well.

A friend of mine took his girlie to a surprise visit to the Lincoln Memorial. He popped the question there so everytime he saw a penny or a fiver, he'd be reminded of it. Then they met me and a bunch of friends at the old 9:30 Club to see, who else - The Wedding Present.

I had been living with the gentleman in question for eight months when Christmas rolled around. I knew something big was in the works. I came home from work on the 23rd, and he-who-had-never-had-animals had brought home two cats from the SPCA. It was the best Christmas present ever - he knew I had been lonely for a pet. Christmas Eve, late, one cat came walking over to me. He had a ring on his collar. I looked up and the gentleman said "Honey, let's make these boys legal. Whattdyasay." I said yes. And cried. Still have the man, the ring, and the other cat.

In 1999, I was in the process of moving to Portland with a girl I barely knew. In a Motel 6 in Tigard, Oregon, she took a pregnancy test, which came up positive. "Well, I guess we should get married, then, eh?" and we wore the $5 silver rings, purchased at the mall, for the next year.

I will always be grateful that we never went through with it.

We decided to get married one day while eating brunch in Federal Hill, Baltimore. Then we went to an Orioles game.

But we decided not to tell anybody until we went away for a weekend we'd been planning. So a few weeks later, we went up to Harper's Ferry, WV. I thought that we would just go up for the weekend, come back, and tell everyone that we got engaged. (I'm not so romantic.) Mr. gaspode is a little more romantic, though. So we get up there, around dinnertime-ish, get into our B&B and the room is filled with my favorite flowers (irises). So I'll all like "awwwww". Then he drags me out muttering "sunset is at [whatever time it was]" So we're driving around Harper's Ferry, which is beautiful, but he's getting all (quietly) mad because he can't find a nice hillside or whatever that's facing the sunset. I have to sit there and pretend that I don't know what's going on, and I'm cracking up because I didn't think we were going to do the whole proposal thing.

So he doesn't find a good place, so we head out for some dinner. Nothing more is said that night. Then the next day we are wandering around some old battlefields and come across one that had this view out over the Shenandoah and Potomac Rivers. I'm admiring the view, taking a photo, and when I turn around, he's saying how much he loves me and wants to spend the rest of his life with me and will I marry him? Then he says "shit" and bobs down on one knee like he's genuflecting at church. I'm like "yeah" and he's all "thank god" and I'm all "what? you thought I would say no? we'd already decided?" But no, for him it didnt' count because there was no actual proposal (he didn't know that I'd already emailed my best friends in NZ telling them we were getting married, after we had that brunch).

Then we went to Antietam battlefield, because, um, love is a battlefield. Duh.

why yes I can remember every detail, even though I say I'm not romantic. So?

But my favorite engagement story of all time is that of my friends Deb and Dan (Dan is ilovecheese on MeFi). Here it is.

I was thinking about marrying this Brazilian friend of mine so she could get a green card (our wise second thoughts spurred her to find another way to stay, lucky for both of us), and we were walking along the south side of Houston, maybe around Broadway, and I just casually said, "Well, why don't we just get married and figure it out from there," and this woman in front of us turned and looked at us so googly I knew she thought I had just proposed out of the blue, especially because [redacted] and I were a little tipsy and grinny and blushy and holding hands.

The Story of LF's Parents:
My mom and dad worked in the same company, mom as a number-checker type thing for the engineers (ie dad) who worked on blueprints for stuff/building/whatever (I don't remember the name of the company or the titles of their jobs - not important anyways). The first time mom met dad was the day her boss had given her desk to someone else and so transferred her to a random office. At some point in the morning she said a little angry prick (my dad) stormed in and demanded to know what the hell she was doing there. She said Boss assigned her to that desk and if he didn't like it he could get lost and talk to Boss (turns out it was dad's office - don't know why Boss did that). He said "Get the f*ck out of my office" and she left but called him a prick on the way out. Later that day when she was getting into her car in the parking lot she heard a quiet voice ask if she wanted to go for dinner on whatever day. Looking around she realized it was coming from the car next to her where dad was slouched down in the seat with his day-planner. She agreed (I don't remember why - she always said her initial impression was that he was a prick). After dating for three months or so, after mom had left that job and was between jobs, mom said she was making lunch when someone knocked on her apt. door. It was dad, he burst in, sat on the couch and tossed a piece of paper on the coffee table. "You have three days to sign that," then he got up and left. Mom checked the paper: it was a marriage license. They were married in 1978 and have been together ever since!

This thread is sweet.

Mine is here. I left out the fact that we had dinner at Chi-Chi's first. CHI-CHI's!!!! He said if he had taken me somewhere fancy, I would have suspected something. That's true.

He asked my dad for permission to propose. Apparently, Dad warned him that I could be "a handful" and then told him, "You realize that if you hurt her, I will have to kill you."

Gaspode, it would have been awesome if you had done the choreographed Love is a Battlefield dance at your wedding.

It wasn't romantic but not much about us ever was. I had broken up with him after seven years the past March and then got lonely and missed the comfort and ease of someone used to all my idiosyncracies (of which there are many). I was still in L.A. and he was in Auckland. So our phone romance began again and he made plans to come visit me in December. We had looked at rings many times before and as the trip grew closer he would ask me what I would say if he asked me to marry him.

I had convinced myself I still loved him even though I knew a year ago that it was no longer there.

Still I continued to delude myself.

Friendship is enough for marriage, right?

So, December came and the question kept coming...

"If I was to ask you to marry me, what would you say."

My answer was always "Yes."

He hinted he wouldn't ask until the end of his trip.

We were affectionate but still deep down I knew.

The night he asked we went to one of my favorite restaurants that was so packed the people were on top of us to the left and to the right.

So, we went to our favorite bar after that and started talking about all the ways we had hurt each other over the years.

Great start, huh?

You'd think I remember what he asked when he finally asked it but I don't. I know it was cavalier, flippant with his NZ charm (is there such a thing (sorry 'pode))I remember hearing about all the girls he had been with while we had been on that break. (Sure, I had broken up with him but so many over that many months??? Wow.)

So, in the end I don't remember what was said but the ring was handed over to me in the box. It was pretty and though I had NO story of which I dared to repeat (then) I was happy.

So, we planned a wedding.

But thankfully, for both of us, we wised up.

Oh, and I learned that the answer to the friendship question, for me at least (cause I can only speak for myself)...

Friendship is never enough for marriage.

Agreed, Lola.

I can't remember mine, it was so long ago. We were already living together. It probably went like "I guess we could get married, huh?" We got divorced about 2 years later.

My parents: My dad had gone to college in Utah and was living in Ohio. One day he was talking on the phone to a female college friend and she said that when she was 25, she wanted to be like my mother. My dad was intrigued and got my mom's number from the friend (he was planning on going back Utah for Homecoming). He called my mom up and asked her to dinner. She said "Are you calling long distance?" and he said "I'll tell you if you say yes." They went out a few times when he was there, and when he flew home, he called from the Cincinnati airport and proposed (they had known each other 7 days). My mom took a couple of days to think about it and then accepted. They were married 3 months later and have now been married for 40 years.

When I was a kid I though it was romantic, now I just think that they were crazy!

This thread is great. Lots of neat stories. Unfortunately I don't have any to share.

I ask people to marry me all the time in IRC. So far, no takers.
posted by mike9322 17 April | 13:52

If anything goes wrong with my legal resident status, you'll be the first on my list mike, how's that sound? :)

I think it would be a very sad day for Metachat when mike9322 ties himself down to just one woman.

True. We could do the Big Love thing instead, but with less Mormonism.

Or better yet a MeCha commune of some sort.

I hear mike9322's got the big love thing.

rainbaby wins!

Girlfriend said, one November afternoon, "Are we ever going to get married?"

My response, "How about next year?"

Her immediate response was disappointment, as Next Year is always far in the future. She thought for a moment, and then realized that it really was not that far away, and that I had just consented to get married.

That was 16 years and two children ago.

I blogged our proposal/engagement story shortly after it happened.

We got engaged 2 months after we met, and married 4 months later.

My brother R. and his girlfriend were visting her family in Colombia (And meeting her father for the first time.)

Colombia has a very good domestic emerald industry, and so R. cooked up a story about wanting to buy an emerald ring for our mother. So they went jewlery shopping - where he had tipped the shop off in advance to help out: "So sorry, miss, we have very few emeralds, but perhaps this diamond will meet your fancy?"

He had la novia try on all kinds of different rings "for mom", all the while keeping a sharp eye out for what she favored. A suitable show was made of photographing an emerald ring for mom to approve of. A distraction was created, and the engagement ring was purchased.

Later that week, the family had a big party celebrate their visit, and my brother produced the ring, which (entirely non-coincidentally) fit perfectly!

Holy cow, I leave the thread for an hour, and the lovefest is on! How come I'm never around for my own lovefests?

Cabana Boy will never settle for just one woman. Okay, I'll make an exception for Specklet, because, let's be honest, she's about as much woman as even the mighty and virile Cabana Boy can handle. But, till that day, all the Metachat ladies (and, apparently, some of the men) may enjoy me equally.

I used to work with this guy Alan who came up with something that was both magnificent and totally economical. I've never heard a proposal story I liked better.

I heard Cabana Boy's been working out a lot lately.

I was 25, girlfriend got pregnant from exactly one session of unprotected sex, she was in Vancouver, I was in NM, she decided she wanted an abortion, but I was okay with either decision, made us realize we were pretty serious, decided wanted to really give it a chance, but needed to marry for immigration purposes. Discussed it one night very practically and pragmatically.

The second time I proposed to someone was when I was 21. She was my childhood girlfriend, we remained friends, there was (and still is) a deep bond between us. Late one night I wrote a poem containing a marriage proposal and then I got in my car and drove the two hours to her house, got there at 3AM, tapped on her window to wake her up, we went to her bedroom and I wordlessly offered her the poem. She read it, got teary-eyed, and said that she couldn't say "yes" but she didn't want to say "no" and foreclose on possibilities in the future. It was all good as far as I was concerned—as I put it when I wrote about it later, I want to live in a world where a mad romantic will write a poem containing a marriage proposal and drive for hours in the middle of the night to deliver it...and I made that world be real.

I still have a vague hope that somehow, someway, we'll get together again someday.

I met ex husband in Baltimore; he arrived at my door in NY a few weeks later with a guitar and a backpack. At some point in our short NY odyssey (we moved back to Baltimore when I got pregnant, which I think took about 6 weeks after we met mental note: do not get pregnant with someone you have known less than 6 months minimum and 6 years is probably better) he took me to a jewelry store near where I worked, where there was an opal ring I had been coveting for years. He bought it for me and said, as he handed it over, "If we're going back to Baltimore I damn well want you to have a ring on your finger before you ever walk back into the Mt. Royal Tavern."

He had his good moments.

aahhh the Mt. Royal Tavern*. My good friend fell through the window of that place.

*also known as the place you can sprint to when other bars call last call and get another two beers.

I'm still not so secretly in love with the girl who turned down my only half-joking proposal seven? eight? years ago. We were not "dating", though we'd had a few (pseudo-)dates. I was depressed, and she took me to play pool at the student union on west campus. It was the nicest thing anyone'd ever done for me (outside family), as I love shooting pool. She sank a wonderful sidepocket shot (sidepocket shots are my weak point) and right there I asked her to marry me. She said no and looked at me like I was crazy. I said to myself: "We'll see about that!" She still returns my phone calls, so only time will tell. I'm currently soured on marriage, but times change.

Caramba. Okay, here goes.

1) Guy asks me to move to his home state with him after knowing me for, oh, two months. I said maybe next year; I'd have to think about it. He said, "Of course, we'd be married by then" and pulled out a ring. I told him I really needed to get to know him better and apologized for having to turn him down. He never spoke to me again and gave my freakin' ring to his bookkeeper, whom he married like two months after that. Freak.

2) Standard ring-at-dessert, one-knee job at nondescript chain restaurant. I accepted but ended up not marrying him after I ended up in the battered women's shelter for Thanksgiving. Freak.

3) Guy was planning a more traditional proposal but "couldn't wait." Put a ring on my finger in a fucking deli PARKING LOT during my lunch break from work. I said yes. That marriage lasted, oh, about three (miserable, unromantic) years. Proposals on asphalt are harbingers of doom.

4) In bed. Probably not sincere, but he insisted he was. I giggled and said no. He's still with his wife, last I heard.

5) Standard ring-at-dessert, one-knee job at very nice, independently owned and operated restaurant. I accepted. We've been divorced for three years.

The best proposal story I have ever heard was... my friend's boyfriend was working in Louisiana for a couple of months, flew back home unbeknownst to her, lit fireworks in her front yard... she came out, like WTF is going on, and there he was with a picnic set up in her yard, champagne, and a mariachi band. They're still together after ten years.

Hmph. I have to quit settling for the Generic Erics, you know?

I ran into one of my coworkers at a party in Seattle and we start chatting. My ex was there and I pointed him out and we got into a discussion about him.

me "yeah he was a good guy but couldn't beat me at scrabble, you know?"
him "is that your only requirement for marriage?"
me "well yeah that and having his dick pierced, also no on that one for him. And he'd have to be able to bring me to orgasm on purpose. Some people just can't do that, you know?"
him "I think for me the only thing I'd want is for someone to marry me in Las Vegas"
me "That's easy, road trip huh? I'm driving cross-country to a library conference this Summer?"
him "You need a co-pilot?"
me "maybe"

very mild flirting ensues. we both go home separately.

That weekend I'm at a local library conference. You can check your email there on little laptops but they have big screens so you can actually see it. I open my mail to read something like this

Do you already have a passenger for your road trip? Could it be me? If I get my dick pierced in San Francisco will you marry me in Las Vegas?

A whole bunch of librarians waiting in line behind me made weird little noises. I wrote back "yes" and the next week, we started playing Scrabble....

We were married for five years.

jessamyn - that's oddly...sweet :)

Mama and Papa Muddgirl met while taking a computer class together (this was back in the 70s, I think). Mama says, "The minute I saw your father, I knew I was going to marry him." Too bad he was dating someone else at the time. 3 months later he shows up at her door with a bouquet. 6 months after that, they decide to get married (just like that. They were sitting on the couch. Pop said "lets get married." Mom said "OK"). (When they told my grandparents, they said "What took you so long? We knew ages ago!")

jessamyn - you agreed without knowing whether he could beat you at scrabble???

Here's my favorite engagement story, written/drawn by two comics-making friends of mine.

I'll tell my friend's story: She had been dating her boyfriend for almost 9 years at the time. Needless to say, she was somewhat frustrated at where things were - or weren't - going. They went downtown for the day. All afternoon she was kind of griping at him, saying that they weren't getting younger and it was obvious it wasn't going anywhere, so maybe they should just break up...little did she know he had the ring in his pocket! They went for a carriage ride on Michigan Avenue. About halfway through, he got out this little speech he typed out and asked her to marry him. : ) She accepted and they got married in October 2004.

I'm at work now but will post the email in which George proposed to me when I get home.

As for mike9322, I would so marry him. OK, maybe not marry him, but I would totally have at him.

*bookmarks thread under "Awwwwww!"*

I think I popped the question during a hayride. I used the money intended for my college class ring to buy the engagement ring. Ummmm.... she said yes.

That's all I remember. Sorry, it's been 22 years now and more important things have displaced my memory.


P.S. We're still crazy about each other; does that help?

I blogged our proposal/engagement story shortly after it happened.

Heh.... I hadn't even heard of that IntarWeb thingy when I got engaged.

jessamyn - you agreed without knowing whether he could beat you at scrabble???

It was a conditional yes. He got the piercing too, though we compromised on a Prince Albert. It was an odd story all around. I didn't kiss him until our wedding kiss and I'd never been to a wedding before my own.

Here's the cute story of a friend of mine's mother:

She went to summer camp at age 13 and there was a counselor who played folk guitar and was all dreamy by her standards. She acquired a snapshot of him and put it in her wallet. 12 years later she was in Tompkins Square park, and saw the guy strumming his guitar. She introduced herself and produced the photo that was still in her wallet. They were married that year.

OK, here's how George asked me. Now he was a man of actions, not words, and he'd made it clear in so many ways that he loved me, but the words wouldn't come. Then, 28 May last year, 7.35am my time, 2.35am for him, he sent me this.

Once you answer one question no, then the rest won't matter.

1)Would you want to live with me?
2)Do you think you could live with me? I have been single a long time and I am pretty set in my ways.

Because of the boys, I living there probably can't happen
so that means you would have to emigrate here....

3) would you want to do that?

Well, that is enough for now...
A no to any of those and that settles that....
if you happen to answer yes to those three then that will bring up a zillion and half more questions. One of which is Will You Marry Me?

Anyway, I am heading back to bed and get the rest of my beauty sleep.

G.

Of course, the answer was yes. We met up in July and made plans for me to take an unpaid leave from work of 3 months, from September 2006, so we could have the changing of a season together and know for sure that it'd work, without me having burned all my bridges in the UK if it didn't. George died on 14 November 2005.

Fuck God.

((((((((essexjan)))))))))))))

God is an asshole with a vicious sense of humor.

/me hugs essexjan. Hard.

hugs, essexjan.

I'm so dreadfully sorry to hear that, essexjan. My condolences and I know there's nothing I can do but wish you well, so there it is. Take care, and if you don't mind I won't shout in your other thread.

(((essexjan)))

The mister and I made plans for me to move here to Canada and live with him. He talked with an immigration officer who told him that it would be no problem, there was a form I needed to fill out and we'd be okay.

So, I quit my job, ordered a moving van, etc. I was on my way back to Seattle on a Monday two weekends before my move date and I stopped in at the border to see if I could go ahead and fill out the form the immigration guy mentioned. That's when the shit hit the fan.

A different immigration officer (a manager, of sorts) told me it wasn't that easy and they don't "just let anyone move up here." After getting a bit more information I left. I was able to hold back the tears until I got to my car. I started to drive back to the mister's place crying all the time. I called him on my cellphone and told him what happened. He had just gotten to work but turned around to meet me at his place. Somewhere in our conversation (me going through Kleenex like I owned Kimberly-Clark) he said, "so, we should get married, eh"?

We got married the following Saturday. We didn't tell anyone in our families. My oldest brother (the one in Seattle and whom I was living with) will never forgive me for not letting him know so he could be there for us.

This is why I say that one day we'll get married "for real".

Trisha - I cry every damn time I read that comic. Same with this one.

(((esexjan)))

EJ...this is one of those things that simply sucks. But I'm glad you knew the love you knew.

*HUGS EJ HARD*

muddgirl: I love what Gabe had to say, but for some reason it doesn't strike me as being as cool at Dave/Raina's because there's more art in theirs. I mean, Raina-drawn Dave is so cute and Dave-drawn Raina is so cute and anyone who's been in their presence for longer than five seconds knows that they are so perfect for each other.

And man, they're really awesome story-tellers.

The one that Shaenon Garrity did of how Andrew Farago proposed to her was awesome, too, but I can't link it because it's on a pay-site.

(((esexjan)))
Oh babes.
That's so sad.

oh essexjan, so sorry...

(you have to stop making me tear up at werk...;)

Here, essexjan, pick one:
≡ Click to see image ≡
Hugs, honey.