How To Propose

My friend Karen from Colby sent out a great story about getting proposed to (at? No, it's to. It sounds like getting acclimatized to...). Anyway, the story involved her man taking her on a bike ride, but of course that day she didn't want to go on a bike ride, but he insisted. And then, after they fell down a mountainside, busted up their bikes, and sprained some arms and legs, he proposed.

No, it was more romantic than that.

But M-N brought up the point that proposals, or at least the slightly involved and complicated ones, tend to involve one person suggesting to the other that they go do something that's completely symbolic of them as a couple. But the proposee is, naturally, often disinclined to do whatever it is (bike riding, pole vaulting, or stamp collecting).

So the proposer has to get adamant, force the issue a bit ("But I've wanted to grind wheat into flour all day!"), which may then lead to some resentment ("We just ritualistically slaughtered the pigs on Tuesday!").

I could mention here that this is very appropriate preparation for the squabbles of marriage, but that's too easy. When I proposed to M-N, I had come to visit her for a week (we were living half-way across the country from each other at the time). I kept waiting for a good time, but she was working a crap job, it was play season, and I finally just had to do it on the last night.

What's the point of this story? Hot air balloons. If you get the proposee in a hot air balloon, she or he can't think about anything else but how great you are, how romantic it all is, and the possibility of plunging towards a horrible, horrible death.

Hot air balloons.