How to Guarantee Your Proposal Won’t be Featured on HowHeAsked.com

To say that my wait for Remus’ proposal became a bit torturous is an understatement. We openly discussed when we wanted to get married, and once agreeing on a timeframe, wound up looking at venues, finding one we both loved, and putting a deposit down on said venue, thus securing our wedding date. And all before he actually proposed.

I was eager to let our nearest and dearest know when to mark their calendars, but Remus insisted we wait until he “officially” popped the question. I argued that putting a deposit on a venue is pretty official, but his definition of “official” included a ring on my hand, because “if you tell people we’re engaged and you have no ring to show them, they’re going to think I’m some kind of moron who can’t get his shit together.”

So fine, I’ll wait until you get a ring to let people know we’re getting married. How long could that take? A couple of weeks? Maybe a month? Fine, whatever. We booked our venue almost a year and a half in advance, so there was plenty of time.

But Remus’ job had other plans. For the next five months any lunch hour he planned to spend perusing Chicago’s jeweler’s row was overtaken by fire-drill emergencies, unreasonable last-minute client demands, and project plans that were so mismanaged that it’s a wonder they ever got done. Hoping to get to the jewelry store before it closes at 7:00? Sit your ass down, we need to pull another all-nighter. My wait for the proposal dragged on and on as his work life became more and more tyrannical, and the doubtful “does he even really want to get engaged?” seed started to take root in my mind.

He has since left that job for one that actually champions a work/life balance for its employees, and I’m not sure which once of us is happier about that. As our “year and a half to go” timeline crept closer to “one year to go,” I started to get extremely anxious about when we could finally spill the beans. He eventually shared that “it’s out of my hands at this point,” leading me to (correctly) assume that a ring had finally managed to be ordered.

Then came the weekend that I was convinced it was coming, because homeboy could not have been throwing up any more signals.

I had made Saturday night dinner reservations at one of our favorite restaurants to celebrate his first week at his new job. That Friday night--while at a wedding DJ showcase, of all places--he mentioned that he needed a decent headshot taken for his profile at work, so he might dress up a bit for dinner so I could take some photos of him that night, too.

“What are you going to wear tomorrow night?”

“I don’t know…jeans and a not too terrible top, I guess?”

“You should wear a dress. You look so good in dresses.”

Hm…OK…

At some point in the evening I commented on how shitty my unpainted nails looked.

“You should treat yourself to a manicure before dinner tomorrow night.”

Sure…maybe I’ll do that… (and I did).

The following night Remus dressed up in a button down and sports jacket, and I put on a dress that went with my freshly manicured nails. Before leaving for dinner he suggested we head up to the rooftop deck on our building to take those headshots. On our way up he commented: “I hope there’s no one else up there…”

OK, Casanova, I’m picking up what you’re putting down…

I now had no doubt in my mind that the proposal was about to happen.

So we went on the (vacant) rooftop with views of the Chicago skyline just as sunset was starting on an unseasonably warm and sunny November evening, and I took a series of headshots of him. And then…we left for dinner.

Why the hell didn’t he do it on the rooftop?! Is he doing it at the restaurant? I was pretty clear that my #1 rule for this whole thing was “no public proposal”…

We had a fantastic meal, complete with drinks and dessert (holla, Siena Tavern), and then…he suggested we go grab another drink somewhere else. He suggests Sable. Which is the somewhat swanky bar/restaurant where we met for the very first time.

Oh…he’s going to do it at Sable! I guess that’s appropriate, and I can get past the “no public proposal” stipulation as long as he doesn’t make a big show of it.

We get a cozy table for two at Sable and enjoy a couple of cocktails. And then…we head back home.

What the fuuuuuuuuck?

“Let’s stop by the park near our building before going home.”

OK, so we’re doing this in the park? Yes, we must be doing this in park. We’re on a bench overlooking the river, there’s no one else here, the sun has set and the city is all lit up and glowing, any second now he’s going to pull that thing out of his pocket and officially ask me to marry him!

And then…we went home, changed into our pajamas, and settled in for the rest of the night. And my brain kind of exploded.

What the fuckety fuck fuck fucking fuck??? He was totally going to do it tonight! Right? Wasn’t he? What was all that “wear a dress,” “get a manicure,” “rooftop,” “bar where we met,” “romantic bench time in the park” bullshit about??? Did he chicken out? Does he really not want to do this? Am I one of those psycho-bitch girlfriends who pushes to get married when her boyfriend has no interest? But we openly talk about it all. the. time. Is he just messing with me? Was he purposely trying to throw me off all night long so that I’ll be truly surprised when he actually does propose? That’s so cruel! What a fucking asshole! What in the ever-loving fuck is going on??!!

My inability to maintain a poker face around Remus was exacerbated that night and he could tell that something was bothering me. When he made the mistake of asking about it, I burst into tears.

“What are you doing? Are you fucking with me? Could you have misled me any more all night long?”

I didn’t even need to mention the word “propose” for him to know what I was talking about. He insisted that he wasn’t fucking with me and simply thought we were just having a nice romantic night out. I declared I was going to bed and was in such a depressed funk all day Sunday that we barely spoke.

Coming home after work on Monday I was still feeling miserable, and as luck would have it, we had a Skype call scheduled with a wedding photographer. I was still wondering if he was having second thoughts about getting married and wasn’t even sure it was worth having this call, but that was a conversation I couldn’t even stomach having at that moment, so we carried on with the meeting.

At the end of the call the photographer promised to email us both a link to one of her full wedding galleries for us to look at, and then we signed off, I changed into my pajamas, and asked if he wanted to watch something off the DVR.

“Sure, but do you want to come into the office first and look at this gallery the photographer sent?”

I look at my phone to find no new emails waiting for me.

“Did she already send it? I don’t have any emails.”

“Maybe she just sent it to me. Come take a look.” And he heads into the office. And now I’m pissed off at the photographer (along with the world at large).

Stupid fucking photographer, can’t even manage to include me on an email when I’ve been her primary contact in setting this all up. Who doesn’t include the bride on their emails? Like the groom is of any use on his own in the wedding planning process. If you can even consider us a bride and groom since I’m not even sure he wants any of this anymore…

I grab a handful of Mike & Ike candies from the box on the coffee table, shove them into my mouth, and head toward the office, still grumbling about this dummy photographer.

And then…I walk in on Remus down on one knee in our office with a ring box in hand. The exact words that were exchanged are private--though at one point I did cry out, “I have a mouthful of Mike & Ike!”--but he officially asked me to marry him and I officially said yes. And he explained that he didn’t even pick up the ring until that day, so he never had intended to propose over the weekend, but knowing it was coming soon he apparently got a little overzealous about what was to come and misrepresented a multitude of prime proposal moments.

And that is how to guarantee your proposal won’t be featured on HowHeAsked.com: have it done while you’re in your pajamas with a mouthful of candy after have a mini-mental breakdown.

The Waiting is the Hardest Part

I am not a patient person. I’m also not particularly fond of surprises. So when forced to wait for a surprise I know is eventually coming, I find myself in a very special sort of personal hell.

The surprise I refer to is Remus’ marriage proposal (this is written before said proposal has happened, with the promise to not publish it until afterward). Being one of those couples who knew pretty early on that we were in it to win it, the idea of us getting married was initially bandied about within the first month of our relationship (specifically when I was asked if I would take his last name if we were to get married, a topic to be explored further at another time). By the end of 2014, when we were already living together and openly acknowledging to anyone who cared (and probably a few who really didn’t) that we did plan to eventually marry, I made the prediction that he would pop the question by the close of 2015. I was told in no uncertain terms that he wouldn’t be asking by then. I scoffed, figuring it was a ploy to keep me off the scent. Then 2016 rolled around and no proposal had happened. That’ll teach me!

Having never seriously entertained the idea of ever getting married until I met Remus when well into my 30s, I don’t have a fantasy “dream wedding” in my head to work off of, so I really have no idea how I’ll go about making wedding plans and decisions. I’m also not dying to get a ring on my finger because, while I like fine jewelry as much as the next girl, I’m mildly concerned about losing it or getting mugged for it. And I’m definitely not looking forward to trying to arrange a fun party for all of our guests when there are certain long-distant relatives I already know will balk and stammer at the choices we’ll make (head’s up to all: there will be no bridesmaids or groomsmen! Clutch your pearls now and move on!). So for these reasons, I don’t mind postponing the inevitable. But for the very simple reason of, “What the hell are we waiting for?!,” I find myself going a little crazy waiting for the axe to drop (or insert your own more romantic-sounding proposal metaphor here).

The topics of our engagement, wedding, and future life together are all open for discussion at any time; we can apparently talk about these things ad nauseum, we just can’t actually do them. At the end of 2015 we jointly met with a financial advisor to discuss working toward our future goals--wedding, buying a home, retiring early and living a baller life--and cited 2017 as our (admittedly broad) target wedding date. We discussed the ideal time to host a wedding and decided that spring would be the least likely to conflict with preexisting birthdays, vacations, and holidays. OK, I thought, so a Spring 2017 wedding it is.

While visiting our families for the holidays we openly talked about our plans to have a wedding soon-ish, assuring them it would be on our home turf of Chicago. Remus even cited his fondness for the venue of a friend’s wedding we had attended earlier in the year, which was news to me. I was promised that we could go window shopping for rings in January, so he would have an idea of what I would like. OK, so proposal in early 2016. That coincides with planning a wedding for Spring 2017. All systems go!

It seemed like we were both on the same page, until a weekend afternoon spent casually discussing upcoming travel plans sent everything I had built up in my mind cascading down like dominoes. After talking about our big spring trip for 2016, some smaller excursions coming up in the summer, and a potential idea for a long weekend getaway in the fall, Remus mentioned how next spring he’d like to do a truly major vacation, like the Pacific Coast Highway trip we took the year before. I instantly felt my stomach drop out from underneath me.

That would be Spring 2017…is he not thinking that we’ll be doing something kind of important in that timeframe…?

I cautiously broached this very question with him, trying to make it clear that I wasn’t attempting to pressure him into making a decision here and now, while desperately trying to establish if I had actually created this phantom wedding timeline out of nothing.

“Oh…well, maybe. I wasn’t really thinking of that.”

“OK…well, we had previously said spring would be the best time to do it. And had set 2017 as the target year. So that would mean Spring 2017. And if we’re doing it then, that would mean we should be looking for a venue soon-ish…so…” I trailed off, hoping he would fill in the unspoken, do you think we might be getting engaged now…ish?

I got the exact opposite reaction I was hoping for, as he cited fall as perhaps a better time, or if we pushed things to 2018 it wouldn’t be the end of the world. And while either a fall or a 2018 wedding certainly wouldn’t be the end of the world, I felt immediately devastated because even hypothetical wedding planning can apparently push the most level-headed woman to the brink.

I was in a funk for the rest of the day, feeling sadly disconnected from the man I’m almost always in sync with, and troubled that he apparently wasn’t ready for this major life step that I didn’t seem to be afraid of.

When I finally came to him in tears that night, fretting about us not being on the same page, and declaring, “This is why I hate surprises! I’m a planner!,” he assured me that we were on the same page, and it wasn’t an issue of him not being ready, but that he simply wasn’t ready to propose that instant. While my practical nature says, “OMG, can we just do this thing already?!,” his slightly-more-romantic nature wants the time and breathing room to plan out and enact a proposal that I won’t see coming, will make for a good story to tell others, and neither of us will ever forget. And so I need to relax and let him have his time to plan the moment, because the proposal is the one part of the whole wedding circus over which men are able to have complete ownership, which I realized after he pointed out, “If it’s any consolation, once the initial ask is done, you’ll get to plan pretty much everything else.”

And that’s when I remember everything that goes into putting together a wedding--Do we have to have a theme? Who officiates when neither of us have any religious affiliations? When do I have to start watching Say Yes to the Dress?--and I’m in a whole new special sort of personal hell.

Follow-up: We got engaged on November 7, and are planning at Fall 2017 wedding.

It’s Not That I Don’t Want to Be Supportive, I Just Really Want to Eat the Cookie

While I’ve never been the overt cheerleader type, I like to think that when there are things that are important to the people I care about, that I’m supportive of them and whatever they need to do to achieve their desire. But apparently the line to my supportiveness is drawn at my generally atrocious diet.

I freely admit that my dietary habits are mostly garbage: bread, cheese, pasta, chocolate, sugar, fried foods…if it’s something that would appear in the smallest area of the food pyramid (or whatever they’re using to teach kids about nutrition these days), then I want to eat it. I’ll occasionally begrudgingly eat a salad if I’ve been on a particularly bad streak of eating unhealthy foods, but I’ll be silently lamenting the fact that it’s not a cheeseburger the entire time. To combat my poor eating habits I’ve found a fitness regime that motivates me enough to stick with it and keep me in the “could be in better shape if she tried harder, but not a total slob” weight class. This worked for me, until Remus, the man I share a home with, decided he wanted to live a healthier lifestyle, and ruined everything.

Between having a stressful job that doesn’t inspire a lot of physical movement and falling into the “not trying” comfort zone of being in a committed relationship, Remus found that he was lacking energy, had put on a few pounds, and just generally felt crappy. I suggested he start joining me at the gym. He decided to start eating better. And then my world fell apart.

Now if I brought home sea salt brownies from Trader Joe’s, instead of having to fight him for them, he’d ask why I had brought them into the house. If I suggested spaghetti for dinner, he’d want grilled chicken and vegetables from the local Mediterranean place. If I was baking cookies for a party at work and offered to leave him a couple he would wonder if I was trying to sabotage his diet with my demon butter and sugar discs. If I was eating from a bag of pita chips, he would read the nutritional label on the bag and comment on “how bad these are for you.” (They’re fucking pita chips and they’re mine! Go away, you food buzzkill!)

Since I live firmly in the mindset that life is too short to deny yourself the things you love, my way of working around my new roommate, the Nutrition Nazi, was to simply stop telling him what was available to eat in our home. I could still enjoy my indulgences, and he could play the role of dietician when he found an empty Oreo package in the garbage and got to regale me with the calorie breakdown of just one cookie.

Dining out is less of an issue, since he can have his salmon salad and I my fried chicken, but deciding on meals to cook at home is a challenge, complicated by the fact that neither of us is a very seasoned cook and our joint repertoire mainly consists of pasta dishes, tacos, and a chicken and rice dish with everything smothered in broccoli and cheddar soup. Due to these culinary limitations, we’ve been ordering takeout a lot more often, and I can’t count how many times I’ve heard, “What do you want for dinner? I don’t really want pasta. Or pizza. Or burgers. Or Chinese.” Having destroyed everything I love, we inevitably order from the place that makes made-to-order salads large enough for two meals, and I demand he order an extra side of bread.

The struggle over what we can eat together and both be happy continues, with no easy solution in site. In the meantime, I dropped four pounds in a month and Remus has yet to discover the box of Skinny Cow ice cream bars in the freezer (the word “skinny” is in the name, which makes it OK). And I am preemptively crafting my arguments as to why having our eventual wedding dinner consist of grilled veggies, quinoa, and fruit cup for dessert is completely unacceptable.

Not So Great Moments in Romantic History

While not every potentially romantic encounter I’ve had is worthy of its own story, there are several moments that deserve to be documented.

There’s the guy in Boston who I met for a casual lunch who kept his sunglasses on the entire time inside the (not especially bright) café. He would let the conversation frequently lapse into silence by simply not responding to a question I asked, choosing instead to creepily leer at me from over the top of his shades. Needless to say I never went out with him again and we never even spoke again until many months later when he randomly pinged me online with the message, “Do you like apples?” I didn’t respond and blocked him, even though yes, I do like apples (preferably in pie form).

There’s the guy I had dinner with who spent most of the evening talking about his beloved dog. He worked in an industry known for not paying well, but had his own place. I, also working in an industry known for not paying well, was sharing a house with four male roommates, so I asked him in all earnestness how he managed to afford to live alone. He responded that after he paid his rent, his utilities, and covered whatever the dog needed, he was usually left with $15-30 each month. Ignoring the fact that this meant he had absolutely no savings to speak of and would be completely screwed if am emergency situation should arise, I asked how that didn’t put a damper on his social life. He told me that all he wanted was to find someone who was happy to hang out at home with him and his dog, so it didn’t really bother him. I suppose, at its core, that’s all most of us are looking for, but how you don’t see that buying a large pizza will cause you financial ruin as an issue is beyond me.

There’s the guy in New York who worked backstage in some capacity at a theater. This meant his working day started around 2:00 in the afternoon and ran through the night, and his days off were Sunday and Monday. I was a typical Monday-Friday 9-5er, so aligning our schedules for just the first date wasn’t easy (it wound up being a Monday night dinner). We had a good time and agreed to meet up again. I suggested we do something the following Sunday. He said that he liked for Sundays to be his day to do nothing. Then I suggested that he pick a weekday--any weekday--to come into the city a bit early and I could meet him for a bite to eat during my lunch hour. He said that he didn’t like getting up or traveling to the city any earlier than he absolutely had to. Annoyed, I suggested that he should only date women who also work in the theater industry with the same wonky schedule, because I wasn’t going to be satisfied with a relationship exclusive to Monday nights. This apparently pissed him off as he copped an attitude with me for being “so inflexible.”

There’s Octopussy. In the aforementioned house in Boston that I shared with four male roommates, three of them were perfectly nice guys in serious relationships, so I rarely saw them, and when I did they were great roommates who respected everyone’s space and even let me have my own bathroom to myself. And then there was Octopussy. He was English and living here on an expired student visa, working at a cater waiter for special events at the university he never managed to graduate from. His hobbies included sleeping all day, not showering regularly, making a mess in the kitchen and leaving it for someone else to clean, and trying to shag his way through the city of Boston before he inevitably got kicked out of the country.

He campaigned hard for a while to get a dog for the house, for the sole reason that “dogs are a great way to meet women.” When none of us were interested in this endeavor, he said he’d get one on his own, until one of the other roommates said that according to our lease, pets weren’t allowed, and that he was allergic to dogs, so we couldn’t have one in the house anyway. “I’m also allergic to horses, so don’t ask if we can get one of those, either.”

One Friday night I found myself with the rare treat of having the entire house to myself, so I decided to celebrate by watching TV in the living room while wearing my flannel pajamas. Octopussy eventually stumbled home after a catering gig and flopped on to the couch with me, asking if I had anything to drink. I said I had some mediocre booze left over from a recent weekend visit to an out-of-town friend if he was interested in that, which of course he was. Barely one drink in, he began rubbing my back and declared that this would be a banner night of “drink a little, watch TV a little, and hook up a little.” I rolled my eyes and retreated to my bedroom, wondering when immigration services were going to deport this jackass already.

The incident was never spoken of and he never tried anything again, so I just put it behind me. He eventually asked if he could use my computer while I was at work to send emails--he didn’t have his own computer, no surprise, and this was a few years before smartphones were a thing--and I said fine, then after a couple of weeks started coming home to pornographic fan-fiction-esque entries left up on my screen for me. Luckily, I got a raise at work around this time and could afford to get my own place. Which led to me meeting…

There’s the real estate agent in Boston who helped me find a new apartment. He was around my age and really cute, so when he asked me out I was beyond delighted. Unfortunately, our date didn’t go so well as we didn’t have a lot in common to talk about, he wouldn’t stop trying to unnecessarily touch me, and he gave off a very weird vibe, primarily when we stopped into a bookstore and he saw a display of tiny books each featuring the origins and historical insights about a specific name. He wanted to get one for his brother’s new baby, but couldn’t remember exactly what said baby’s name was, and proceeded to get into an argument with the salesgirl about their return policy if he happened to buy a book featuring the wrong name. When he dropped me off at home I thanked him for dinner and tried to quickly duck inside, but he caught me by the elbow and actually said the words, “Let me give you a kiss,” and then awkwardly tried to make out with me while I kept my mouth clamped shut, resulting in him licking my teeth.

When he called asking for a second date, I straight up told him I wasn’t interested and didn’t hear from him for at least six months. During this stretch of time an on-again, off-again bullshit excuse for a relationship that I foolishly dragged with me from college into the real world finally blew up in my face, leaving me feeling every shade of hurt, angry, embarrassed, and vulnerable. Teeth Licker must have sensed this somehow, as he popped up out of the blue to call me and asked me out again. Not really wanting to go, but feeling low enough to say yes anyway, I did stipulate that I was only interested in hanging out as friends and wasn’t looking to date anyone. He agreed, but then tried to maul my face again at the end of another night filled with absolutely no chemistry of any kind. When he called the following week looking to go out again, I informed him that I was having my wisdom teeth removed that week (true story) and would call him after I recovered. And then didn’t.

There’s the guy in DC who I met for one date and had a really good time with, but felt absolutely zero physical attraction to. When he asked if I’d like to go out again, I said sure, but that I was really only interested in friendship with him. He told me pointblank, “Thanks, but I really need a girlfriend.” Fair enough, buddy.

There’s the guy who was in Alcoholics Anonymous. This didn’t bother me because A. good for him for realizing he had a problem and getting the help he needed, and B. I’m not a huge drinker anyway, so it wouldn’t put a damper on my lifestyle. What did bother me, however, was that he had traded his addiction to alcohol for an addiction to adrenaline. He belonged to the fitness cult that is CrossFit, and on the few dates we went on all he talked about was his daily visits to his CrossFit gym, how much he was lifting, how far he was running, and how he was in training for Tough Mudder, an extreme physical challenge that people have actually died while doing. It got to the point where every time he would talk all I could think of was this:

When he eventually informed me that between his daily AA meetings and CrossFit workouts he really didn’t think he had time for a relationship, I was neither surprised nor particularly disappointed. I sometimes wonder if he’s continuously trading one addiction for another and will eventually wind up with a massive collection of porcelain dolls or unable to stop smelling sweaty gym socks.