The Ring in the Champagne Glass

I was thinking about weddings earlier today. (I can’t even remember why; a movie on TV I think.) But it suddenly dawned on me how different the whole proposal process is perceived by guys and girls. I mean I always understood the guy half. And to me it’s fairly straightforward: You meet a girl, you fall in love, you date a while, then you propose. There doesn’t seem to be a whole lot of stress involved(the proposal part I mean, there’s definitely a little stress in the relationship part). I mean yes… I suppose you’d be nervous about finding the right time and place. But realistically if you’ve been dating long enough, the time/place doesn’t make a huge difference as long as you made an honest effort, and the chances of you getting rejected is very low. I’d wager that most guys know for sure by the 3rd or 4th year of dating if they’re going to propose or not. After that it’s more or less an issue of timing(Are we too young?) or stability(Can we handle the stress of a wedding/marriage with X going on?).

What I realized today, though, is that this is probably a very different mindset from girls. This is not to say that they don’t worry about timing and stability, I’m sure that goes into their decision. But overall, for them it’s more of a waiting game. While most girls can be pretty confident that they will get proposed to if they’ve been dating for like 4 or 5 years, there’s probably still some doubt. It makes sense I guess, because in the end it comes down to the amount of control you have over the situation. It’s very easy for guys to be nonchalant about it, because in their minds they can be 100% percent sure that they’ll propose in the future. Girls don’t have that luxury, because you can never be 100% sure about someone else’s actions. It’s always much easier to be relaxed about something you haven’t done, than about something that you’re waiting to happen. Also, I kind of get the feeling that weddings are a much bigger deal for girls than guys.

This is all assuming, of course, that you’re traditional. Although I don’t know anyone personally that’s done this, there’s definitely girls out there who would probably have no problems with doing the proposing themselves.

To close I’ll list some interesting stories/facts related to the topic:
-My debate teacher’s husband proposed to her by putting a ring in a paper bag in the toilet and calling her to look at it.
-I have received 6(probably soon 7) wedding invitations so far from friends I’ve gone to school with, and zero from people related to me.
-I am pretty sure 90% of the girls I knew in high school are married by now.
-Mean marriage age in US is M:27 & F:26. Mean marriage age in Utah is M:24 & F:22.
-The longest I’ve heard of a couple dating was from a guy I worked for at Philips. He and his wife dated for 7 years before his wife  told him she’s moving out of the state if he didn’t propose. (And this was not like a 3 years in high school, 4 in college kind of thing. They were in their 30-40’s.)
-The shortest I’ve heard of was 6 weeks(from first meeting to proposal).
-The longest I’ve heard of someone dating and then breaking up is 5 years. Although 3 of those  years were long distance, and I feel for long distance, it’s less about the time, and more about how often you see each other. These guys only met up like 2-3 times a year(as far as I know) and didn’t spend any of their breaks together.
-I’ve only been to one wedding that I can remember of.

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