How about, "So, I was thinking. Wanna get married?"
Something like that. No stunts. No rings concealed in food, no public places where third parties will be aware of what's going on (minor exception for if you plan to go out for a nice dinner, you can tell the waiter it's a special occasion).
Skywriting? Jumbo-trons at the game? Hiring a large group of streakers with The Question spelled out on their bodies to run by a restaurant at a pre-arranged time? Hiring Ian McShane to pop The Question (either Deadwood-style or Lovejoy-style)?
2. Doesn't matter. A girl can propose on 29th Feb.
Oh, "no stunts." Well, that's no fun. I'm off.
1) Not Valentine's Day, if you're planning on going out/wanting flowers/etc.
2) Not public, ever.
3) Realize that you are going to act like a dork around her until you actually propose, and she will notice, and she will think 'something is up' or 'something's wrong!'
4) Let's talk about jewelry settings!
Get the question tattooed on his chest. But without her name, so in case she says no it can used on the next girlfriend.
The commenter. I just didn't want to put it in the post.
4 and 3 are very nicely complementary.
The commenter is me.
"You know, I probably wouldn't mind being married to you."
Has a surprising success rate.
10.1: I should point out that I'm unmarried. The streaker thing doesn't really work.
I'd say hurry up and do it before V-Day. You don't want to do it on V-Day and if she's expecting a proposal (which from her "I'd better be knocked up in 18 months" comment, it does), she might start to wonder if you're ever asking if V-Day comes and goes without one.
I inserted the ring into one of the candies in a box of truffles, only the diamond exposed.
Have you thought about supergluing the ring to the tip of your wang, then gently guiding her hand into your pants while you're both on the couch watching TV?
Go to a Chinese restaurant with a fortune cookie with the question as the fortune. Have the server switch it out.
11, meet my first time out.
The public idea I had was to do it while we were on a plane, borrowing the P.A.
Then I rehearsed it in my head, and when I got to "Can I hijack your P.A. system to--" I changed my mind.
Also, Valentine's will come and go. I need to buy the setting, and it will take two weeks to make the one I want.
7: 3) Realize that you are going to act like a dork around her until you actually propose, and she will notice, and she will think 'something is up' or 'something's wrong!'
Dude. I thought Buck was breaking up with me or something.
17: 11, Meet my first time out, rather.
13: Yeah, when I knew the proposal was coming, the four days before he actually managed it were excruciating.
18: One of my friends actually thought he was going to break up with her until he pulled out the ring, he was so stammering and nervous. Another's story involves a walk under the moonlight. Romantic, until you add in the 20-degree temperatures, leaking boots, and a bitter wind.
19: Actually, it wasn't at all like that.
Two people who don't like the idea of the institution of marriage decided to get married,
Stras is really unreasonably sensible lately. Just ask. This whole over-the-top-proposals thing just sucks. You gotta push back against the wedding industry. Might as well start now.
But I don't recommend what happened to me: jewelry store brought out the black box and the red box, asked which I wanted, went into the back and came out with a neatly wrapped package. Which was empty, since the ring was in the other box. Didn't quite get exactly the reaction I was looking for.
Is there any question about the answer? Because I think you have more range of motion if you know you're going to get a yes.
So you people who were proposed to, how'd that work? Had you not discussed it beforehand?
Wow. I guess I just hang out with a different crowd, but some of these comments really surprise me.
Proposing on Valentine's Day reinforces the Valentine-industrial complex and is therefore deprecated. If it's not inconvenient, tote the thing around until an appropriate moment arises. (I should caution that this approach can take a while, nearly three months in my case.)
(My feeling being, it'd be crazy not to discuss it beforehand, but if you do so, why all the rigmarole? I am a very romantic fellow.)
23: You had the same clue anyone gets when their significant other's body language and manner changes quickly.
I don't think she knows that anything's up in the near term. We've talked about it pretty openly -- after two months, she took me to a friend's wedding and said I could tell her about my wedding to my ex as long as I wasn't closed off to the prospect of another one. She also let me know that her sister who worked for Tiffany's was moving soon, and if I wanted her gemological assistance I ought to take advantage of it. (I did, and scored. Not through, Tiffany's of course.)
So: unless I've been weird, she shouldn't have a clue. She's not too suspicious; on her birthday, she was stuck in a hotel in Orange County, and I tricked her into telling me her hotel and room number without her suspecting a thing until she opened the door.
However you do it, I suggest you begin by asking her father for her hand. Also, verify that she's willing to take your surname.
I suspect Wrongy wants more than just her hand in marriage, Knecht.
Oh! It must be metonymy, to avoid having to broach indelicate topics with the father.
27: I could draw a parallel with a dissertation defense. Your committee has approved the dissertation, the university has approved the dissertation, you have the job offer and they certainly don't want to keep you around, and there's no way anyone would have let it get this far if you were going to fail the defense. Yet, the defense must be done. In short, rigmarole is fun.
In our case, we'd obviously discussed marriage ahead of time, because getting him down here was going to require an awful lot of research & effort (as well as deciding who was immigrating.) But making it 'official' gets all the relatives on board.
We actually hadn't talked about marriage, although I'd proposed shacking up. Buck took that as an indication that I was open for further negotiations, and made a counter-proposal (after about a month or two) of marriage.
While I kind of get what you're thinking with 'it'd be crazy not to discuss it beforehand', even if you don't, proposing is opening the topic for discussion, no?
Go somewhere beautiful and private, wait for a nice moment, ask.
32: Dude, she's dropping a lot of hints. So she doesn't know, but this won't come out of the blue, either. Talk to my sister the gemologist! Teefuckinghee!
This is good. Out-of-the-blue is not, but still-a-bit-surprised is good.
I agree with the anti-romantics: just ask. Oh, and decide what you want to do wedding-wise *before* you start talking to professional wedding people.
As to the question in 27, we'd talked about it ahead of time, and Mr. B. fedexed me a ring and a note on a piece of origami paper. It's kind of nice to be able to keep the note. I suggest putting proposals in writing, therefore.
In short, rigmarole is fun.
Remember that when you have to defend.
proposing is opening the topic for discussion, no?
Opening it with diamonds (or the like) isn't quite the same as opening it simpliciter, I think.
41: If I ever get to the defense, I promise to treat it like my prospectus defense, which was a blast, even the part where my committee sent me out of the room so they could formally call me back, and then got into an argument over something and forgot to call me back for a while.
I know (and I'm one of them) a lot of people who range from indifferent to strongly against the idea of engagement rings. If you take that out of the equation, it breaks the ritual expectations, I think. Which isn't necessarily anti-romantic ... you can celebrate the decision however you choose.
Simple transparency is best. My husband tried to do a silly game thing, winging it because he realized and hour after having the ring that he couldn't wait, and was utterly unsuccessful at maintaining any degree of normalcy about him. It was sweet, but a little tedious to pretend I didn't know what he was doing.
Has anyone mentioned attaching the ring to the prenup?
The proposal totally depends on the couple. Are you zany, crazy people?
You should do it like a Jeopardy question.
The lavish wedding should be defended against general deprecation of the wedding-industrial complex. You can spend a lot of money on a great banquet for your friends and family without creating an hysterically commercial event.
26. There is none.
33: She is, about which I'm ambivalent.
28: Soup, why?
Oh, and decide what you want to do wedding-wise *before* you start talking to professional wedding people.
I'll note that about 3/4 of the couples I know who did big weddings have regrets (from mild to extreme). Every single one of the (smaller number of) couples I know who did minimal weddings or none at all (typically some sort of related party/celebration later, but not a `wedding' per se) are very happy with the decision. Just saying.
My ex recently got engaged, and there was an unofficial pre-engagement actual engagement period during which the question had been popped but the fiancé apparently felt it didn't really count, since no ring was present. I and his affianced both thought that since they had put a down payment on an apartment, that should count plenty well enough. (Especially since, prior to the profusion of diamonderie, that's precisely what one would do when one got engaged or married instead.)
Normally, I am shy about sharing personal details of my life, but I will tell you my first engagement story.
I had the ring. I was going to have it waiting at the Rotunda at UVa. The morning that this was going to happen, my ex-wife starting crying and bitching to me about how all her friends were engaged and why aren't we getting engaged. Despite her bitchiness, I went through with it.
In hindsight, I was clearly getting a message not to go through with it.
Our wedding planning was a little nuts (but it can be done in five months!), but our wedding was a blast. Don't buy into all the nonsense about having to have Leonidas roses flown in from Ecuador or your marriage will fail and the baby Jesus will weep, but if a big party is your thing, have a party.
28: Soup, why?
Because most of my friends tend to deprecate engagements to the degree that if there is a formal proposal at all, it's probably either jokey/campy or very relaxed. Talk about people getting visibly nervous for days, or working their way around to it over months looking for the right place or whatever just seems alien to me.
Story similar to 49: A fellow grad student in my department got engaged when she picked a fight with her live-in boyfriend about how he couldn't commit to her. Somewhere in the middle of her crying, he yelled, look, I've had the ring for two weeks and I've just been waiting for the right time!
You can spend a lot of money on a great banquet for your friends and family without creating an hysterically commercial event.
You can, but you can also do it fairly inexpensively by having heavy appetizers. Which has the extra benefit that it doesn't require people to sit down; they can continue to mingle.
Re. wedding flowers, I just found out about this site yesterday.
I don't get the women picking fights with their guys over wanting to be engaged. Why the fuck don't they just ask?
I'll note that about 3/4 of the couples I know who did big weddings have regrets (from mild to extreme).
The other 1/4 had a proper hora.
I think I have convinced my boyfriend that if we get married, we should do it in Vegas. Preferably with an Elvis impersonator officiating. Is that possible?
Then we will have parties afterwards to rake in the loot.
Friends of ours: at this restaurant in Paris, with a glow in the dark ring.
From Witt's tractor link yesterday:
When George decided to propose, he decided he'd take Carolyn on the tractor, they'd gaze at the harvest moon and he'd give her a ring.
But then George's sheep got sick and he needed Carolyn's help de-worming them. He held the squirming animals down, while she squirted medicine-filled syringe into their mouths.
George was impressed. "Man, baby you're good at this," he told her.
When they finished, when they were exhausted and sweaty and as far from romance as two people can possibly be, George turned to her.
"Would you forgive me if I just got down on my knee and proposed on the porch?" he asked.
There was little doubt of the outcome. "Here was this woman who had just de-wormed 35 sheep for you," says Carolyn, 56. "You've GOT to know the answer is yes."
I have no advice about this. My partner and I will be old and grey and still talking about if we should get married. (If we're lucky.)
53: I could see that happening just as a reaction to weirdness. Buck was freaking me out for a couple of weeks before he proposed, because he was so tense. I could completely see that sort of thing turning into big fights about almost anything.
A lot depends on expectations. I could have had no reception, or the usual cocktail/dinner/dancing reception, but almost anything in between wouldn't have been acceptable.
Why the fuck don't they just ask?
You shouldn't have to ask!!
I could have had no reception, or the usual cocktail/dinner/dancing reception, but almost anything in between wouldn't have been acceptable.
Acceptable to whom?
61: Dream on, Ben. At some point someone has to move from "if we get married..." to "are we actually serious about this? Are we getting married?"
I don't get the women picking fights with their guys over wanting to be engaged. Why the fuck don't they just ask?
Yes, this is pretty ridiculous.
you can also do it fairly inexpensively
Yes, by all means reduce the price without reducing the size of the fiesta. But I think some see "big wedding" as tantamount to "wedding-industrial capitulation" and look down on big parties.
53: Had a similar fight a few weeks after I had picked up the ring, and a month before the reservations I'd made for the night on which I proposed. I resisted walking over to the desk and pulling out the ring, but it was close.
remember, "wedding-industrial capitulation" starts with the dress.
I think I have convinced my boyfriend that if we get married, we should do it in Vegas. Preferably with an Elvis impersonator officiating. Is that possible?
This worked really well for 4 friends of mine (double wedding). They opted not to have an Elvis officiating. They Fed-exed a "by the time you read this" letter to their loved ones, apologising and explaining, and they eloped. The party was a month later back home, and it was a good one. Great pictures, too.
65: I went to one wedding that was billed as a "don't buy us any presents (we don't need them) and we won't buy you any food". Everyone brought booze and instruments and had an amazing time. The whole think cost approximately nothing, too.
57/68:
This is pretty much what I was talking about. I know a bunch of couples who've done variations on this, and they're all happy about it. Including one who did the vegas with elvis thing.
62: Family, mostly, if they're involved. It's a tricky balance between the wedding day being about the couple getting married and what the family thinks of as a wedding.
FYI, the Church of Elvis in Portland, OR, has closed down. They really did perform marriages.
The Church of Elvis got a lot of publicity but wasn't really a money-maker beyond bare subsistence.
62: I can see this. On the other hand, sometimes it's healthy to tell the family to get stuffed and have them learn you mean it.
My advice is to fuck what the family thinks of as a wedding, if it involves substantially more than two people getting wed.
Pasdequoi: I forgot that years ago we tried to elope to Vegas, on Valentine's day! Our car got stuck in the snow on the way to the airport and we had to hike to a friend's house and stay over. I can't believe I forgot that. We both lost our nerve after that; that's as close as we got. So take a cab, is my advice.
My advice is to take what the family wants with a grain of salt, the size of the grain largely depending on whether they're contributing funding for the party. Or general appeasement: you're marrying into the family whether you think you are or not, and making sure everyone's getting along is a good idea.
A wedding does involve substantially more than two people getting wed. It involves families and communities of friends merging with one other, and pledging to support the couple and their offspring. I don't think it's simply succumbing to social pressure to have the wedding be about more than just the two people, because the marriage isn't either.
I like all of soup's scenarios, but I imagine those people were either blessed with some continuity of attitude among friends and family, or they really pushed hard on some of their people's expectations. (Or they didn't want a lot of out-of-town guests.) Nothing wrong with that, but we all have different battles.
One big obstacle to a wedding for us has been two mentally ill family members, one on each side, who would be very hurt if left out but who would be compelled to destroy any celebration that included them. Has anyone else found a workaround to this? It seems like a choice between"invite no one"and "don't get married".
Will this be your girlfriend's first marriage?
Opening it with diamonds (or the like) isn't quite the same as opening it simpliciter, I think.
Hasn't this been linked around recently?
Margaret Brining argues that engagement rings became popular when women could no longer sue for breach of engagement. It's one of those law and economics arguments that seems to pat to be true, but Ben asked.
81: What would she want in a wedding? Is her family going to be involved?
A wedding does involve substantially more than two people getting wed. It involves families and communities of friends merging with one other, and pledging to support the couple and their offspring. I don't think it's simply succumbing to social pressure to have the wedding be about more than just the two people, because the marriage isn't either.
That's a nice concept, and I don't doubt that sometimes it works that way, but mostly it's a big party where the couple are the center of attention. Great stuff if you're into that, not so much if you're not. Either way, the friends and family stuff is a process, not an event.
83: Yes to family. She wants the same rabbi who did her Bat Mitzvah. I don't know about the rest, but we've been to five wedding in the ten months we've been going out, and we have a good feel for each others' tastes. Fun before precious.
A fellow grad student in my department got engaged when she picked a fight with her live-in boyfriend about how he couldn't commit to her. Somewhere in the middle of her crying, he yelled, look, I've had the ring for two weeks and I've just been waiting for the right time!
This is frighteningly close to what happened with Fleur and me. We had been having chronic fights rooted in her doubts about my commitment to her. I wanted to propose, but I didn't want her to think that I was doing it under duress. So we had to wait until we were separated for a few weeks, and when she returned, I popped the question before the warm glow of our reunion could dissipate.
After the fact, I told her that I felt like Lincoln waiting to issue the Emancipation Proclamation: Lincoln had prepared a draft of the proclamation in July 1862, but he didn't want it to be interpreted as an act of desperation, so he decided to wait for a Union victory--a victory that would prove a long time coming. Finally, after the ambiguous Union victory at Antietam on September 17, he issued the proclamation on September 22.
After the fact, I told her that I felt like Lincoln
...she always had great thighs.
Knecht, please promise that you'll keep liveblogging your marriage.
79: This is similar to my situation, except the Vegas idea is more for my sake than his. He has a very close family and lots of family friends. My family is alcoholic, cantakerous, and constantly feuding. I imagine if we had a wedding, his side of the room would be full, and mine would fill maybe two rows. And the reception would be a disaster. Yet I couldn't have a wedding without inviting these people.
Eloping is the best (and cheapest) option.
Why the fuck don't they just ask?
You don't want to ask the question if you aren't sure of the answer. The last person to decide is the one who holds the cards, and is the one who can do the asking.
Our planning was pretty normal except for one tough decision about whether to invite a college friend whose wife has gone through periods of hating me (we did invite them, and it was a wise decision), and what to do about shivbunny's family, most of whom would not be able to make the trip down for the wedding, but whom we felt we should invite. Trouble is, it would have taken a 75 person wedding to a 250-person wedding, making the whole thing impossible to plan.
So we've elected to do a more laidback reception in Canada this summer.
89: You could elope if you want/need to make an event of it. Or you could just go to your local J.P. Then you can have party/ies to celebrate after the fact with both families, seperate if that's best.
91: As an occupational hazard I know a lot of academic couples, many who meet during grad school or as junior faculty --- miles, countries, even continents away from both families. I've seen quite a few weddings that go like this: small civil ceremony followed by a small party with friends. Then over the next 6 months or year (depending on visas, etc,, it can take a while) go where ever one family is concentrated and have a party there, then go where ever the other family is and have a party there. This works particularly well in inter-continental situations with big families.
92: I think if we went to the Justice of the Peace, my boyfriend would want to invite at least his parents and some of his closer relatives. And then if my family found out his family was there, I'd end up with the same problem. Going to Vegas is an acceptable way to not invite anyone.
I probably just need to divorce my extended family.
I probably just need to divorce my extended family.
Are you kidding??!?! Think of all the great stories you have because of them!
mentally ill family members
Hire a no-nonsense, non-family affiliated person to accompany them. Seriously. Someone with the tough-love skills that Emerson describes his sister-in-law (?) as having. Give them full background on the specifics (does the relative tend to take his/her meds, or not? Is alcohol going to be an issue?).
You can't make a full-grown adult behave a certain way, and you can't control the way a disease is going to manifest itself sometimes even against the person's own wishes. All you can do is provide a kind, professional presence who will stop things from escalating and be physically able to escort the person away from the party if necessary.
And you might be pleasantly surprised. Sometimes people rise to the occasion even despite their demons.
I clearly must live in some 1950's time warp. I usually agree with the relationship advice given out here. If it wasn't for many of you, Knecht would probably still have me believing that he was "working" on his computer all the time. That said, people, What's UP???? You sound like a bunch of Vegans at a Luau. It's as if there is some kind of ethical problem for wanting a romantic engagement, a wedding that involves a cake?
Wrongshore, if she is a romantic type, then romance her!
She will always remember it, just as I always remember very fondly when Knecht got down on one knee in front of the Eiffel Tower, very much in public, and proposed. It was magical.
To Fleur's 97 I will add that it is a very much know-your-beloved kind of thing. I have been partner-in-crime in planning two engagements, and they were tremendous fun, overflowing with romance and flowers and charm and fairytales. In both cases the women in question were delighted.
Ugh. I, on the other hand, once got drafted to plan a proposal to a woman I was 99% sure would say no. I tried to tell the guy, but he was convinced.
99: What'd she say? (And where was Witt's original tractor-story link?)
She started out with 'no', but got convinced into 'not yet'. They got engaged about a year later, but I don't think ever did get married.
This was in college, older students from my church group. I lost religion and lost touch with most of the people I knew from the group, so am not sure what ever became of them.
Oh, Blume, that sounds horrible. What a thankless position to be in. I hope you didn't consider him a friend.
Tractor article linked here.
You sound like a bunch of Vegans at a Luau.
This may be the best ever description of the commentariat.
I hope you didn't consider him a friend.
That was part of the problem: if he had actually been a friend, I think I could have been more direct with him about how this wasn't going to work. I was friends with the woman, whom no one knew very well because she had only been there for the summer.
Wow, I hadn't thought about this in a long time. It really was terrible.
I'm hiring soup as my wedding planner.
99: So, so awful. To plan the trainwreck, instead of just watch!
I heart Fleur.
So many of the romantic proposal suggestions sound anachronistically chaste. Why not propose while you're naked in bed, suffused with post-coital warmth?
108: Not great for telling your relatives how it happened. On the other hand, if you're going to fabricate an entire situation just to do that, you might as well make it more natural and just fabricate the story.
Because falling asleep midway through the proposal would be considered bad form.
I'm hiring soup as my wedding planner.
This is how Kraab spills the beans??
It involves families and communities of friends merging with one other, and pledging to support the couple and their offspring.
A few years ago I was asked to officiate the wedding of some friends (they had done a civil ceremony the day before; this was the show-wedding). They asked me to write the ceremony and though I can't remember it exactly the middle of it was a homily type thing to the families and guests that boiled down to an extremely dressed up version of: these two are getting married and if you don't like it you're going to plaster a smile on your face and shut your hole because you don't get to tell grown-ups what to do.
They're a great couple and obviously make one another wildly happy so it wasn't an active concern but still, I do like to think of a wedding as something that doesn't require approval so much as acceptance and it doesn't hurt to reinforce that in the sweetest, subtlest way possible.
Easier said than done, of course, and all the easier for the fact that my responsibilities ended the moment they walked up the aisle.
Fleur, `a romantic engagement' and `a great wedding' really don't have to involve following someone else's script, do they?
There is all sorts of social programming and marketing around weddings and engagements, I don't see anything wrong with opting out of that. In fact opting out of that sort of thing is almost always a good idea, ime.
Honestly, the most romantic engagements/marriages I know of have all been non-standard in some ways. So often following a script can be the other way around, all of the trappings without the actual romance. The wedding party I mentioned with the no-gifts/no-food deal was done that way quite intentionally, since the couple a) had two households worth of stuff already and b) had friends across a wide, wide range of economic capabilities, they didn't want a bunch of stuff they couldn't use, and they didn't want people feeling bad about there inability to meet expectations, or whatever. Everyone had a wonderful time, and the party went till 6am.
Of course, if what you actually want is the stereotypical, that's what works for the two of you. Seems a lot of people are acting more on expectations that having examined what they actually want, and they can end up disappointed.
You sound like a bunch of Vegans at a Luau.
My description exactly, though of course my line on this is contrary to Fleur's.
114:
"In the event, will"?
In the event that you get married, it will be me?!?!?? I am so flattered. I'll have to decline, of course. But, in another time and another place, the answer would be "YES! YES! YES!!!"
You sound like a bunch of Vegans at a Luau.
Oh yeah? Oh yeah? What's wrong with being a vegan, huh?
117: Yeah. It's like no one's ever heard of delicious poi.
Pig roasts are unsatisfying, parsimon.
There is all sorts of social programming and marketing around weddings and engagements, I don't see anything wrong with opting out of that. In fact opting out of that sort of thing is almost always a good idea, ime.
I'd agree with the first, but not the second. No one should feel pressure to ignore what they want in favor of having the floofy dress and a diamond ring. And I have very strong feelings about going into debt over it. But no one should feel like it's a litmus test of how hip/progressive/whatever they are, either, and opting out for the sake of opting out doesn't make a lot of sense to me.
Do what makes you happy all things considered, ignore Martha Stewart, and pay attention to your budget.
118: But the thing about poi is that it's so very nice indeed with kalua pig. Fine stuff on its own and all that, but just not the same.
How soon is soonish? Because at the top of a Ferris wheel worked for me. Slip some money to the carny running the ride and he'll leave the two of you up there until she says yes or jumps.
116: Like Elizabeth Bennett, will likes "willfully to misunderstand" everyone. (Pun unavoidable.)
"'There is, I believe, in every disposition a tendency to some particular evil--a natural defect, which not even the best education can overcome,' [said Mr. Darcy.]
'And your defect is to hate everybody.'
'And yours,' he replied with a smile, 'is willfully to misunderstand them.' "
This is one of those choices, like that of preferred vacation destination or ideal living space, where people will sort themselves fairly neatly into Bourdieuian niches based on their economic and cultural capital. Lo-Econ Hi-Culture people (our friends the dominated fraction of the dominant class) will prefer stuff that emphasizes elegance or low-key sophistication in contrast to low-Econ crassness (jumbotron) or hi-Econ tastelessness (elaborate and expensive set-ups).
But no one should feel like it's a litmus test of how hip/progressive/whatever they are, either, and opting out for the sake of opting out doesn't make a lot of sense to me.
I didn't notice soup saying anything like that.
121: I didn't mean that you should opt out for the sake of opting out, at all. What I meant is that going along with things just because that's what is done is rarely a good idea. Particularly if you don't want to, but feel pressured to.
If you are being pushed by marketing or others expectations to do something and have no other reason to do it, it's probably a bad idea for you. As you say though , if it would genuinely make you happy, that's great, too.
Doing the opposite of what `they' are telling you to do just to do the opposite is as senseless as going along with it against your better judgement just because it's `the thing to do'. Of course it shouldn't be a `test' as you describe, either.
Of course they're vegans. That's why the wedding will be in Vegas.
a tendency to some particular evil--a natural defect
Now, I tend toward evil and have a natural defect?
Sir Kraab, you are not making me change me mind.
Gonerill, is there any relatively breezy Bourdieu that you could conscionably recommend to someone who was long gone from his college reading days? I always meant to pick it up, but the odds of me trudging through Distinction are slender.
This is not reading in preparation for popping the question. OTOH, 103 may make the playoffs.
132: That's just sophisticated 19th century flirting. The modern equivalent would be:
Omigod! You're so, like, almost perfect!
Omigod! You are, too!
Heh. A good girl friend of my LOOOOVES low-Econ crassness. LOVES it. Thought Britney was The Best Artist Ever and has been brokenhearted by Britney's downfall. I used to assume that she was doing highly advanced Ironic Appreciation, but she isn't. She loves trashy, trashy stuff. I've stopped waiting for the hip reappraisal, and I go with her tastes when we hang out.
(She is from Vegas, which she thinks is so beautiful and shiny and new.)
I would have hated it if a proposal had been a big performance. Mine (his to me) was a spur of the moment thing though, and happened to be somewhere nice. So I'd listen to ogged on this thread. And to soup biscuit - I nodded so much at him that my head nearly fell off.
My cousin and his then girlfriend decided on a special (to the family) date on which to get engaged. Um - you have already agreed to get married - you ARE engaged.
But then I'm a misery who didn't want an engagement ring, didn't change her name, didn't wear a fancy white dress (yeah, I think the day might feel a bit strange already - I'd prefer to not feel like I was playing dressing-up), chose the reception venue on a whim, and actually semi-wishes I'd never got married - am increasingly disturbed by the politics of it.
But congrats Wrongshore - I'm sure you'll ask beautifully and I'll look forward to seeing your wedding photos.
So I'd listen to ogged on this thread
You're a lawyer too, now?
128 is both true and a bit depressing. If I look at the people I've tend to hang out with at various times, I could say it's nice to see how often these things are broken, but it's probably just another niche.
130: Glad to see the emergent peeping of comity on the opt-out question.
Emotionally, I come from a place that favors many elements of the traditional wedding, and I feel I can defend it on the merits. I like pageantry, big parties, rituals of commitment, reuniting my friends, and being the center of attention. I also feel that the patriarchal trappings lend themselves easily to reinterpretation as the joining of communities, and I like to dance. So for me, it works really well. It helps most of all that I have a good relationship with my former-hippie upper-middle class parents, leading to comity, broad-mindedness, and sponsorship.
But yeah -- YMMV widely, and people should have more options than they think they do. So it's good to proselytize the alternatives.
The attitude of "this is my party, and I want you to be there" is one that I first learned with respect to performance, but it works well for parties. If your guests' expectations are challenged but they feel welcome, you'll do fine. At my 1st wedding, there was some carping by the Lutherans about the Jewish stuff and by the Jews about the vegetarian stuff, but everybody stayed late.
Guy Debord is easier reading than Bourdieu, more interesting too, IMO. Societe des Spectacles is online free.
121
Cala made the point better than I. But when someone drops the hint that their sister works at Tiffany's- she's not looking for a silver bangle. She wants a rock. And I say, rock on.
140: Seeing yourself as part of a predictable niche can open up a lot of generosity towards people whom you've seen as part of a different niche. It also makes it easier to separate questions of politics from questions of taste.
144: That aspect is true. But it undermines you if you are actively trying to break some of the signaling, but find yourself collating into a group who are characterized by a signal of trying to break the signalling ... it might just be turtles all the way down.
142: There's a fancy eyeglass store in L.A. called Society of the Spectacle.
The gob in this case was always already smacked.
Did anyone else notice that instead of just leaving the thread like a normal bored commenter, Tweety employed mutant teleportation powers in 134?
and actually semi-wishes I'd never got married
I can understand this one. If its something you disagree with (at whatever level) It's easy enough to talk yourself into something like for purely practical reasons, even if you reject the outward symbols, and then later wonder if that isn't reinforcing exactly what you disagree with.
My first husband proposed via the family dachsund: "Hey, Max, do you think she might marry me?" I don't advise this as a romantic moment. Max got so excited at the prospect that he humped my swain's leg.
I wasn't leaving the thread. I was giving you advice on where to propose.
this is my party, and I want you to be there
Having a couple of times now done this and had exactly zero people show up (for a generic party, not a wedding), I'm finding it harder to make myself say it again. I expect it would be less of a problem at a hypothetical wedding, but the fear would definitely lurk.
Some time ago, I explained about my wife's hometown tradition of heischen gehen. Do that.
It also makes it easier to separate questions of politics from questions of taste.
Way to chop three legs of four out from under the blogosphere's coffee table, dude.
145: I think it raises the bar for how you do cultural politics. There's an element of what you're talking about that is feminist and anti-commercial, and it's very difficult to do that politically and not just as a matter of taste.
Is it only misplaced nostalgia to think that some of the 60's and 70's small-scale experiments in co-operative goods and services -- food co-ops, child care co-ops -- had an element of creating alternatives that went beyond taste, and there's an element of that missing from today's alternative-living gurus?
I think the place where you get from de gustibus to social change is moving beyond individual choices to differing social arrangements. If it's just something you and your family does differently, you can put it in Real Simple and sell the accessories. If you actually need a number of participants of greater size than a book group, there's something different going on.
While we are somewhat on the subject, can I just inject a: Fuck DeBeers, fuck them and all their progeny. kthx.
If you actually need a number of participants of greater size than a book group, there's something different going on.
E.g., taxpayers to accept and help support your alternative setting?
154 is a pretty good match to my thoughts on it.
157: I don't think that follows, at all.
Deliver the invitations and get hammered?
Actually, on further reflection, maybe it does.
Taxes strongly support the status quo, and it may be that this momentum is so large that you have trouble scaling anything up to significant size without some redistribution of that support.
I think unfogged has started more marriages than it's destroyed, actually.
give it time, ben. Will has great hopes.
160 -- Yep. Your capacity for drink limits the size of the wedding.
157 is fine. Taxpayers subsidize atomized middle-class living and property ownership, so why not other ideas? When I was in the public sector, I routinely told garment activists that there were small business loans that we could adapt if they wanted to create a workers' coop; how cool would it be if that were an explicit incentive?
Not exclusively, of course. there are plenty of things you can create without government involvement.
159, 161: I think it depends on what you mean by "participants" -- the state participates in any marriage to the extent of verifying their proper formation by issuing licenses and presiding over the virtually inevitable bitter dissolution, as does many a church.
I have an idea for a Spike Lee kind of documentary about people riding together to a huge rally for some sort of wine-track candidate or lifestyle perk. I call it "Get On De Gustibus".
Bourdieu: if you have some anthro background I thought that the Logic of Practice was very good. It probably doesn't touch what you're thinking of, though (seemingly class).
Along the lines of this thread, Jammies has something planned up his sleeve.
there were small business loans that we could adapt if they wanted to create a workers' coop
I don't think you're allowed to keep workers in coops anymore.
So he's getting ready to surprise you and you're getting ready to be surprised?
169: Awesome! Non-jinxy congrats on your general climate of success.
I think he should have to ask all the men in your family plus the county Republican party for your hand.
169: He's going to ask for your ass in marriage?
169: From what I've heard, it's an arm with dick on it.
I think he should have to ask all the men in your family....
Heebie isn't actually Appalachian. It's just a persona. "Heebie-Geebie" isn't "real" in the strict sense of the term, more like a blogospheric plot function. So is Jammies, so they should be quite compatible.
He's going to ask for your ass in marriage
He's going to ask your ass to marry him?
At the big game! On the Jumbotron! So everyone can see! Hook it up to the PA!
I assume this has already been posted about here:
http://deadspin.com/sports/gotcha/inside-the-yankee-stadium-proposal-prank-298594.php?mail2=true
We're really just a conglomeration of butts and dicks, rolled together like a caramel apple that's been dropped in an ashtray.
But aren't we all, Heebie? The Human Condition. Some of us Camels, some of us Salems, some of us Virginia Slims, and so on.
181: We had all the detailed planning conversations of our future over December, with timelines. But Jammies loves to plan elaborate hijinks for occasions like this, so there was always definitely going to be some surprise element. But then right after the holidays is my birthday and Valentines day, and I doubt he wants to compound those things, so I'm guessing Marchish.
178: the boys are the cigarette butts, the girls are the caramel apples.
Or is that sexist? It's a very straight male perspective, at least.
177: When I first watched that, I nearly turned myself inside out, so discomfited was I. That sort of humor, even when it isn't happening to real people, makes me climb walls.
183: Couples consisting of two men look like caramel cigarettes dropped into ashtrays, yes, and we don't need you breeders reminding us.
We assigned a task force subcommittee to be in charge of charts.
182: Fun!
So, I'm starting to realize that for lots of people, the getting engaged thing is two-tiered. There's the actually talking about getting married part (like Cala and Shivbunny talking about the immigration issues, or h-g and Jammies hammering out the timelines), and then there's the "getting engaged" part, which seems to be when you make it official and tell everyone else.
While we are somewhat on the subject, can I just inject a: Fuck DeBeers, fuck them and all their progeny. kthx.
Yes, yes, you may.
People say that this is the best introduction to Bourdieu. I found that book hard to read as well.
This page has the cool graph:
http://www.mattikeltanen.com/movable/archives/2007/07/nostalgie_1.html
easy.
1. Get her pregnant.
don't like that one huh?
2. Take advantage of the fact this is a leap year. Keep looking at her expectantly throughout 29 Feb, then burst into tears at midnight.
oh well fuck you then, you're on your own.
Advice for the actual wedding - according to my brief synopsis of "Wedding Planning" magazine, the thing to do is make a list of all the abhorrent wedding traditions that you would never go near in a million years because they're so tacky and common, and then do them. And ask her dad to pay.
HTFH.
Oh and remember to do a big deal about boycotting Sierra Leonean diamonds so all your leftwing friends will be very impressed at the depth of your commitment to this important issue ("wow, that guy's still angry at the Liberian civil war! It finished five years ago but he still cares!".)
182 (and to 184 as well I guess) - while obviously I'm really happy for you heebie, I just don't understand. You've talked about this, and agreed that you both want to get married to the other one, and that this will happen, and yet a Proposal still has to be made? (Have I got all that right?) By this point, isn't it a moot question?
192: Why on earth would you want to do that?
193: It's totally, totally moot. And if Jammies were a different type of person, I'd skip the whole thing without batting an eye. I don't want to go through the motions for the sake of going through the motions.
But in fact, Jammies is the type of person who'll get really into it and be excited and elaborate and plan something delicious and memorable and unique, and I don't want to miss that.
how can you tell/do you know?
Jammies has been moving his assets into an offshore account in the Channel Islands.
193: My guess is that in Jammies culture elaborate practical jokes are necessary in order for a wedding to be valid.
how can you tell/do you know?
I finally started putting out! I'm sure he'll propose now.
192: Dsquared, I remember you wrote a very eye-opening post on this very subject either here or at your place. Can you readily recall the link? I tried to reference it in a Kanye discussion, but didn't have it down.
193: Pageantry!
It's 197 comments in, and you're still trying to start marriages rather than destroy them? What the fuck is wrong with you people? Happiness is a zero-sum game!
196 - I guess you're a nicer person than I am then. I don't think I would have gone along with it 12 years ago either, so I can't even blame my ill-nature on old age.
Anyway, it answers Wrongshore's bleg - wait until March, see what Jammies does, then copy that. Sorted.
I guess you're a nicer person than I am then.
Oh, do you think it's that? I don't -- Jammies sounds like the kind of person who comes up with charming and amusing and creative ways to mark occasions. This is just a Proposal Type occasion, for which he will invent something delightfully proposal themed.
I guess you're a nicer person than I am then.
Hmm, I don't really see it as me being nice. If someone wants to do something elaborate and loving to showcase how excited they are to be with you, you wouldn't relish it?
I definitely don't love the ritual in and of itself. But I am excited to see what Jammies brings to it.
The Bourdieu chart is blank in the lower left. That would be people with almost no capital, but what capital they have is cultural capital. I would put music-playing street people in that category; I've run into a few who are or at one time were pretty good. And probably certain wasted junkies that used to be somebody.
Worth reading. He was miffed because Kanye didn't give him a shoutout in either version of the song.
Shirley Bassey's voice always gives me a tingle.
While we are somewhat on the subject, can I just inject a: Fuck DeBeers, fuck them and all their progeny. kthx.
Yes, that's right, screw DeBeers! That's what so awsome about Tiffany's... their ethical sourcing! Their motto:
"Sustainability Our Most Important Design"
Congratulations Wrongshore, you navigated that choice brilliantly!
Also, yeah Heebie! Have fun.
209: I didn't go with Tiffany's. I had the Tiffany's-employed (and Tiffany's-despising) sister take me to meet a downtown contact. It was all very marathon man.
205, 206 - no, I'd be more like, ""ffs, we've just decided we're getting married, can we just get the fuck on with that please?"
There have been years where I've made C give me my birthday present early because I don't want to be pissed off on my birthday if he's got me something I don't like. Waiting 3 months for a 'surprise' ring and a lovely night/weekend/whatever would be far beyond me.
I think I'm the only married woman I know who doesn't have an engagement ring.
197: Don't joke! I know, let's see, 4! (not factorial) marriages of friends' parents that ended when mom discovered secret bank accounts and asset moving. In each of those cases, mom went straight to a copy machine and then to a lawyer. In a recent case, the mom discovered not just secret bank accounts, but a whole separate household (complete with 28-yr-old ladyfriend) in another state when the semi-elaborate call-forwarding system set up by the dad failed.
Jesus, Oudemia, you're in high-flying circles.
There have been years where I've made C give me my birthday present early because I don't want to be pissed off on my birthday if he's got me something I don't like. Waiting 3 months for a 'surprise' ring and a lovely night/weekend/whatever would be far beyond me.
Okay, but I think this is something on a different axis than nice/not nice!
There have been years where I've made C give me my birthday present early because I don't want to be pissed off on my birthday if he's got me something I don't like.
Why does this piss you off?
I am not someone who would have relished a traditional big-deal proposal, either, in any way. But Jammies made Heebie an amazing crazy birthday video with cats and displaced-in-time party decorations! It's not quite the same thing as a belabored pretend "surprise" question, I suspect.
re: 211
It's my birthday today. And she didn't get me anything at all.* I hope to parlay this to my advantage.
* with very good reasons, I might add. She didn't actually forget.
207 - Immigrants who were good at some art in their native countries.
Damn. I have to check in with Buck and make sure we've declared the traditional Valentine's Day truce. And happy birthday, ttaM!
81: Double wedding!
It's a measure of how much too close I am to this that I took all afternoon to get the joke, but when I did I laughed. Unfortunately, they're our (straight) fathers.
Witt, your advice in 96 is wise and excellent, thanks. I can actually see that working. This thing may happen yet.
Good luck Wrongshore!
I'm so excited about Heebie liveblogging Jammies' proposal.
Asilon and Heebie mudwresting at 6!
213: No. My parents are much older than the parents of everyone else my age and thus bought their house before our town grew all of its fancy bits. That's just for two of them. The other two couples are the parents of college friends.
Asilon and Heebie mudwresting at 6!
Okay, but I'm sending Asilon a hand-printed be-ribboned invitation requesting the honor of her attendance on the 6th hour of today if you start counting at noon.
I know, let's see, 4! (not factorial) marriages of friends' parents that ended when mom discovered secret bank accounts and asset moving. In each of those cases, mom went straight to a copy machine and then to a lawyer. In a recent case, the mom discovered not just secret bank accounts, but a whole separate household (complete with 28-yr-old ladyfriend) in another state when the semi-elaborate call-forwarding system set up by the dad failed.
Good gravy. Were these dads lobbyists? Entertainment lawyers?
I think I'm the only married woman I know who doesn't have an engagement ring.
My wife doesn't have one either. The one I gave her, which used to belong to one of my great-aunts, was too large and couldn't be resized, so she just started wearing one she'd inherited from a grandmother, then decided that would be her wedding ring.
214 - better/worse? (Insert smiley of your choice here.) The whole thing would just annoy me, from the wedding industrial complex side of it to the stupid patriarchal bit.
215 - why would I be pissed off if he got me something I don't like? Because then I've got a crappy present! And I want lovely presents! And because one year he got me a ring for Christmas and I hated it. (It was blue! I NEVER wear blue (apart from blue jeans).) Fortunately he was so excited about it that he gave it to me a couple of days before Christmas and it didn't spoil my Christmas. (Have I convinced you that I'm not so nice yet?)
223 - it will take pride of place on my mantelpiece, but unfortunately I can't travel and will send Emerson as my second.
Oudemia, how do you pronounce your pseud? Oo-dee-mia? Ode-em-ia? Probably something else that I'm not guessing?
Because then I've got a crappy present! And I want lovely presents!
But you seem nice! You seem perfectly nice.
130: Yeah, I figured we were pretty close to on the same page, but the "all the happy couples broke tradition" meme was grating me more than it should have. I have friends who went overboard on the traditional aspect and regretted it, but ours was fairly traditional but I wouldn't change a thing about it, except that we would have gotten to eat more of the delicious food. (Brides & grooms never eat because by the time they sit down they have to mingle.) And I completely agree on the Fuck DeBeers mindset.
134: Jasper. And not in February, for the love of man, unless you like ice climbing.
Will, can you give me a cheap divorce over the internet?
(Procrastinating here. Looking through the yellow pages to find someone to do something in our garden.)
224: Secret bank accounts! No longer just for the rich! Three of these four are just standard executive upper-middle-class types. The fourth case involves the uber rich. As in, dad doesn't have a job.
229: Oo-deh-mee-uh. It means "no woman" in ancient Greek.
234: What's the ancient Greek for "no cry"?
I know, let's see, 4! (not factorial) marriages of friends' parents that ended when mom discovered secret bank accounts and asset moving.
If your assets aren't moving, they aren't working for you. And your lovely wife and family, I hasten to add.
One friend of mine -- the one rich enough not to have to work -- tells stories about secreting bricks of cash for friends in various of his safe deposit boxes during their divorces, in order to keep the filthy lucre from their formerly compliant wives.
234: I thought the "ou" was two different syllables, like in "nous".
Hmm, wikipedia tells me "nous" is only one syllable too. I guess my teacher was wrong.
It just seems scummy and cloak-and-dagger in such a wacky way! Not just bad behavior, but redolent of corruption and scandals, you know?
Will, can you give me a cheap divorce over the internet?
Don't we have to get married first? I dont want to go into it thinking that the worst will happen. We should at least try to make it work.
I like to sing Oudie's name like the song Hootie Hoo! by OutKast. And two is for the song Oudie Ooo! that I sing!
211/225: we have no rings at all.
130: I think I started that, but I never said or meant that all the happy couples broke tradition. It was just that a majority of the ones that didn't had some regrets (but by no means all of them) and of the ones that did break, none of them regretted it. In my direct experience only
If I had to guess why, I'd say that all the couples who broke with tradition had though hard about what they wanted out of it, but only some of the traditional ones had. Or something along those lines.
we have no rings at all.
How sad for your onions.
tells stories about secreting bricks of cash for friends in various of his safe deposit boxes during their divorces, in order to keep the filthy lucre from their formerly compliant wives.
Sounds like a lovely chap.
Jasper. And not in February, for the love of man, unless you like ice climbing.
If you do like ice climbing, you're pretty close to some excellent waterfalls there.
The Bourdieu chart is blank in the lower left. That would be people with almost no capital, but what capital they have is cultural capital. I would put music-playing street people in that category; I've run into a few who are or at one time were pretty good. And probably certain wasted junkies that used to be somebody.
Also those old men who have no money but wander around all day wearing really classy clothes and complimenting people.
OK, I'm assuming dsquared is going to wander back into the thread at some point, so I'm posting my question to him from the other day. Regarding this op-ed:
Your argument, as best I understand it, is that Brits shouldn't get themselves into a twist over the possible passage of sharia law in Britain, because such a law would inevitably violate the European Convention on Human Rights.
My question is: How long would that take to litigate? In other words, how likely is it that British citizens would be stuck living under the disputed law for years while the thing gets worked out in the courts?
The US model, as I imagine you know, means a case often takes 7-15 years in the lower courts before the Supreme Court is even able to rule on it. In addition, advocacy organizations know that they may get only one bite at the apple (since the SC takes a tiny percentage of the cases brought to it), and so they wait for the perfect test case. A classic example is Brown v. Board of Education. I think the NAACP was looking for a test case for at least ten years before that one even went to *trial* court. It's hard not to think that a generation of young people lost opportunity because of that, even if it was the right decision.
Oh, and people who run local historical societies and museums.
235: If you mean cry like shout -- which is weirdly the first kind of cry that popped into my head, presumably thanks to "Diomedes of the great war cry," then "no cry" -- as in "not any cry" would be oudemia boe (bo-ay). But maybe you mean, do not cry?
208: My point, anyway, was that nobody that I saw (and certainly not me) said anything about `conflict diamonds' or whatever.
248: Oh, man. I am fucking slow. Sheesh. I am grading papers as I do this, so my earnestness is dialed to 11.
Sounds like a lovely chap.
Well, he's been a very loyal and kind friend to me, despite our differences of opinion about politics, the environment, private ownership of assault weapons, capital gains taxes, etc. I'd say he and his rich-guy enthusiasm about going places and doing stuff are substantially responsible for extracting me from the well of loneliness and self-pity that I was in a few years ago.
246: "Hello, I'm Hollis Hurlbut."
252 Well, I'm glad of that for you (honestly); and you know him while I don't. My sum knowledge was that he helped his buddies screw over their wives wasn't a good intro.
There are also beloved neighborhood people who have no money but are supported because they're slightly lovable.
It is weird, though, that the bottom level of total capital assumes that low-total-capital people have some economic capital but no cultural capital at all.
There are also beloved neighborhood people who have no money but are supported because they're slightly lovable.
You guys are really quite nice up there in Lake Wobegon, aren't you.
249: I made a joke about conflict diamonds in the last thread. But I think it was just reflexive dsquared antagonism.
No fucking shit. As I've said several times, they had a benefit dinner here to buy the town drunk a new liver. He used to be sort of funny, but towards the end he became a mean drunk.
258: Ah, I missed that. I read it [d2 comment] as an inane caricature, and wondered where it was coming from.
I wonder how I would manage to persuade my honey to make an honest woman of me. Jeeves would know.
He could whack you every time you commence your infernal lying.
263: You have to consider the psychology of the individual. Have you considered having a friend take him out in a rowboat and capsizing it, so that you can swim out and rescue him?
I thought the concept of being made into an honest woman simply referred to replacing premarital sex with the godly variety. It might be more complex, though, depending on how traditional his family is.
I'd be willing to push a policeman into a pond for him!
Traditional in that way, no. Generally nuts, though, yes.
I had dinner a couple nights ago with his mother. Lovely woman, completely terrifying.
Perhaps if you could arrange for someone to attempt to rob his cowcreamer and then interrupt said robbery giving the would-be thief a good coshing.
You could arrange for his father to be arrested on suspicion of failing to abate a smoky chimney, and then have your uncle the J.P. let him off with a mere stern warning instead of six months in Wormwood Scrubs. Then he'd have to allow the banns!
re: 269
Heh. I'm reading that, right at the moment.
211: I never had an engagement ring, either. I'm not a big ring-wearer at the best of times and I don't care for diamonds, so there wouldn't have been much point.
The Biophysicist and I have complementary tattoos: He's got a phoenix holding a rose, I've got a rose in a phoenix talon. Less likely to be lost when kneading bread. As we're celebrating the 15th anniversary of our first in-person meeting today, we do not regret the permanent symbolism.
The problem with Pelham Grenville's earlier advice--- fold her him into my arms, waggle her him around a bit, grunt "my womanhim---is that I do that all the time and no engagement is forthcoming.
My wife wears her engagement ring every day -- it was cheap as I couldn't afford anything -- but, as it happens, she really likes it. It's a red garnet in a sort of faux-medieval silver setting. Both our wedding rings live in a box somewhere and I can't even remember the last time I saw them.
Some formatting problems there.
The cowcreamer book is truly a classic. That's Joy in the Morning, isn't it?
273: Spike your customary orange juice with some gin, try and dismiss all thoughts of newts from your mind, and ask him? Or you could just stand in front of him vibrating your tail and bending your body in a semi-circle.
263: Explain that you're willing to settle and that his window of opportunity is 24 hours.
"Let's face it, you're the best I'm going to get".
Jackmormon, perhaps you're a bit too much of a Gawd-help-us, always mooning about with talk of love and puppies. Try being cold and aloog, respond to his every comment with "Oh, really?" and read books about Theosophy.
My wedding ring belonged to my own great-grandmother, and I'm quite fond of it. Apparently it's purer gold than is usually recommended for wedding rings, but I don't care that it gets dinged up.
Cold and aloog! Aren't we all, deep down inside?
Cryptic Ned is right. JM is always going on about the stars being God's daisy chain, and whatnot.
Have you ever read books about Theosophy, Ned? I'd rather be aloog.
274 - that does sound nice actually. I do wear my wedding ring - no chance of losing it in bread, it takes effort and lubricant to get it off these days.
JM - go on, ask him. For us.
Come on oudemia. You know as well as I do that the morning dew are the tears of precious wee angels. There's no use denying it.
And every time a fairy blows its nose, a star is born in the Milky Way.
go on, ask him
I will bear this advice under consideration.
Dear old Spink-Bottle, what a priceless ass he made of himself!
If you lead your parents to believe you're going to marry one of the costermongers or eel-jelliers in the town square, or the boy who cleans the knives and boots, then when they find out the truth, what's-his-face will seem to them like rare and refreshing fruit. Meanwhile he can tell the mater that he's engaged to one of those gold-digging chorus-girls, and wait for her to make a noise like a tea-kettle.
I might start reading Wodehouse to my children. Wonder if they'd like it.
Advancing from the Edwardian period, I believe Nicola Six has some arch advice on the matter of underwear for girls who want to be married and are not.
I might start reading Wodehouse to my children. Wonder if they'd like it.
If they don't, you can always adopt.
Advancing from the Edwardian period, I believe Nicola Six has some arch advice on the matter of underwear for girls who want to be married and are not.
Ooh, another book I did not like!
294: I believe Nicola Six has some arch advice on the matter of underwear for girls who want to be married and are not.
One of Jack London's weirder novels contains advice to a young wife on remaining appealing to her husband through crocheting herself erotic underwear and learning to play the ukelele.
My hipster son is a Wodehouse fan. Also Scrabble.
I haven't read the Jeeves novels in forever. Maybe I'll wait a couple of years, until the kids are more likely to appreciate them, and reacquire a set.
None of you will be surprised to learn that we didn't have diamonds, or really even a ring. Wedding rings, sure, but of the simplest (and cheapest) possible design.
I'm vaguely embarassed to like my ostentatious ring. I wasn't consulted in its purchase, and if I had been I would have lobbied for either no engagement ring, or a cheap token. But I've been wearing it every day for eleven years now, and it's a pretty color, and I'm fond of it.
A wedding ring and biological children. Are there no depths to which you will not sink, LB?
I crochet baby blankets as well.
Don't know if anyone posted this already, but this guy set the bar for creative proposals by staging a fake art exhibit. Watch the video.
March 7th. I've got work I can't decently walk away from until the third, and then I'll need the rest of the week to clear out my files and send stuff to records.
I'd read a few of the Wodehouse before, and liked them. But reading them again now, they seem so much more brilliant.
Actually, I have a second wedding ring too -- given to me by my father-in-law's godmother (it was her late husband's). I wear it when in Germany, right hand pinkie. In the off-season, it lives in a glass case, along with a 5" braid of my hair (from 1982, mostly dark) and a 5" braid of my wife's (from 1964, fine and blonde), in a closet.
When they show Hugh Laurie's video obit, will House or Bertie get the bigger reaction?
GB, it keeps getting stuck around 2 minutes in. Can you summarize?
I will bear this advice under consideration.
One takes advice under consideration.
I was a little bit "well, this is over the top and forced," but then the bit where you see her lean forward, figuring it out, and then light dawns, was pretty darn great.
The guy built a sculpture that looked like a jumble of shapes on sticks, but when viewed from the right angle, the various jagged shapes lined up to spell out "Will You Marry Me?"
He arranged to have the sculpture installed in an art gallery, led his fiancee-to-be around it slowly, and when they got to the point where the shapes lined up, Kapow! The realization hit her like a lightning bolt. Awesome.
I will take this bear under consideration. And my wing too.
313: I thought it was "This advice bares consideration."
307: wow. Dude had some time on his hands.
consider the bears
they toil not, neither do they spin
One takes advice under consideration
nice, i feel like i've learned something
the problem is will i remember
I still find dramatic, public proposals alarming, but I'm a sucker for photos of naked emotion.
The thingy in 307 is a little bit fantastic.
320: Collocations are hard.
316: Zeugma is keen.
I thought we had established that, while "zeugma" is more funner to say, constructions like those in 316 are more properly syllepses?
Are not syllepses a subset of zeugma?
ARE NOT YOUR MOM A SUBSET OF SLUTS?
"IS NOT", OG.
I just now noticed a particularly clever touch of this George fellow's, to wit, he had two of those little viewing panel things set up, one much lower than the other, so there was a plausible reason for him to be kneeling already. Clever clever!
but I'm a sucker for photos of naked emotion. people
Look, it was a correction that had to be made. Fruit cannot hang that low for that long.
I think "take st. under consideration" is a phrasal verb, not a collocation.
Furthermore, YOUR MOM isn't a set, so YOUR MOM could at most be an element of SLUTS.
Now 332, that's mouseover material.
i like the movie Amelie
very fun to watch how the heroine sets a very elaborate way to hand ircc the box she found to its owner without meeting him
but it's not useful for proposals, i think, like no need to hide for that
YOUR MOM is the set containing all sets with the property DICKS
That's a really cool video and proposal.
Our wedding rings are pretty simple. I tried on some of the diamond circlets that seem to be very popular but they looked weird on my hand. My engagement ring is a very simple, small solitaire. So I have a white gold wedding ring with a braided pattern, and his is tungsten: shiny, dark gray, manly, and practically indestructible.
As long as we're being nerds about YOUR MOM...
336: YOUR MOM = GEORGE WASHINGTON?
Whatever happened to Tripp, anyway? And Austro?
Thinking about it, I believe the comment I linked in 340 was the first one I ever made at Unfogged.
I was just thinking: I didn't remember Teo had been here that long! Time flies.
(Except when you've been home sick for 3-1/2 days. Go away, flu!)
Except when you've been home sick for 3-1/2 days. Go away, flu!)
Ugh, tell me about it. I took off four days last week and I'm still not 100%.
You're only supposed to be 98.6%, anyway.
Also, my date tonight was postponed until Saturday because she's sick. This was probably a better call on her part than my decision at the first date to show up despite being sick.
But it's a call she never would have been able to make if you hadn't gotten her sick! Bully for both of you!
I dunno, I'm pretty sure I didn't get her sick, and I would have preferred to have the date tonight rather than Saturday.
I'm taking the risk of being redundant, but 2 proposal methods I would find interesting would be:
1) Hide the ring in your underwear, and take your lover to a film, and then convince your partner to partake in some heavy petting like in the good old days, when you'd both be under curfew. Then, voila.
2) make a fortune teller and write the same fortune on each flap. "You will marry me". When you read the fortune, make sure to provide the proper vocal inflection that will indicate that you're posing a question, not announcing an authoritarian imperative (unless your lover's into that, of course).
349: Dude, Sunday brunch is a thing of beauty. You're going to love it.
The story my parents always told (which they later admitted wasn't true, but they never did tell us the real story) was that they were on a train in Mexico and my mom arranged for my dad's wallet to be stolen so he would need her in order to get back into the States and would therefore propose marriage, which he did. If you think about this for any significant amount of time it doesn't make any sense at all, so we really should have figured out sooner that it wasn't true.
350.2: "I will marry you, Mesmer!"
You're going to love it.
Hey, I'm not complaining. A Saturday night date is certainly riper with opportunity than a Monday night one. It's just that I would have liked to see her sooner.
352: I may have to steal your mother's style some day.
356: Keep in mind that this probably wouldn't actually work.
Thinking about it, I believe the comment I linked in 340 was the first one I ever made at Unfogged.
I believe that may have been my first thread, too! Weird.
The story my parents always told (which they later admitted wasn't true, but they never did tell us the real story
The real story is that your mom actually changed her mind and said no, and your dad spent 8 months in a Mexicali detention center.
Seriously though, that's awful sweet.
I don't know if I've already told this story, but: R gave me a pretty clear timeline for how she wanted our relationship to progress. (She'd graduate college, then live on her own for a year, then live with me for a year, then we'd get engaged, and then two years later we'd get married. Actually worked out pretty much like she planned.) During the year leading up to the Designated Proposal Window we talked a bit about what she'd like in a ring. Rather than risk me getting her something she didn't like, she very helpfully went online and found 16-20 pictures of engagement rings and put them all in a document with a paragraph on each describing what she did and did not like about each one.
Needless to say, it made the actual ring-shopping pretty easy: I was able to hand the pamphlet to the jeweler and whimper, "Help me?" (The ring ended up being a custom design that I happen to think is pretty damn awesome.)
The problem was, I had a pretty clear idea of when (during the Designated Proposal Window) I wanted to actually make it happen, but I wanted it to be as much of a surprise as possible (given that there was a Designated Proposal Window) so one lovely Sunday morning over brunch I, well, accidentally made her cry by intimating that I was just then getting to the point where I was thinking about being ready to get married. (The ring was, at that point, hidden in the trunk of the car.)
A Saturday night date is certainly riper with opportunity than a Monday night one.
You're so damn good looking that all you have to do is nod politely, not say anything stupid, and you're going to have a fantastic evening.
Down on one knee, opens the ring box, looks up with hopeful eyes and says, "Comity?"
I think I have convinced my boyfriend that if we get married, we should do it in Vegas. Preferably with an Elvis impersonator officiating. Is that possible?
Why, yes, it is.
Sadly, Josh would not be on board with this.
The Bourdieu chart is blank in the lower left. That would be people with almost no capital, but what capital they have is cultural capital. I would put music-playing street people in that category; I've run into a few who are or at one time were pretty good. And probably certain wasted junkies that used to be somebody.
30 seconds before reading that, Emerson, I was scanning the chart and thinking, where am I? Here I am, the lower left - hey, where is everybody?
You and Ned are driving a stake through my heart.
364: I'm pretty sure I've mentioned this before, but my parents are honestly considering celebrating their 30th anniversary this year by going to Vegas and renewing their vows in an Elvis chapel.
You're so damn good looking that all you have to do is nod politely, not say anything stupid, and you're going to have a fantastic evening.
This presumes a level of initiative on the part of the other party that has in my experience generally not materialized. Not that things won't work out this time, of course.
Also, I just talked to my sister, who apparently now has a boyfriend. She sounds very happy.
That's OK, Teo, she probably wasn't the right woman for you anyway.
I knew someone was going to say that.
Another great proposal was done with Neil Gaiman's help. Blog post and video.
371: That second book he hands to Gaiman is for his mistress
367: How much initiative does it take, though? I mean, in my limited experience there are definitely moments where the metaphorical script for the scene says "they KISS," and it's not so hard to figure out what to do when that happens. Is it it not like that for you, or do you have a hard time with the kissing (or what-have-you-ing) part?
Is it it not like that for you, or do you have a hard time with the kissing (or what-have-you-ing) part?
The latter.
Do you think asking would help? That might be a bit easier than taking the physical initiative.
Yeah, that would probably be easier. It also helps when the context is explicitly romantic from the start rather than ambiguous.
I think that if the 'script' says to kiss her then you're in a romantic situation, however it started out. If the script isn't so clear, maybe put your arm around her or something and see how she reacts?
If the script isn't so clear, maybe put your arm around her or something and see how she reacts?
Having someone recoil in horror when you do this has a tendency to discourage you from trying it in the future.
Just make sure it's not a full moon this time.
Ouch. That'd deter me too. (I think one advantage of my heretofore lack of experience is that I hadn't had much stuff like that happen to me.)
Still, there's really only a few ways to go forward. Maybe a note written on nice paper? (kidding).
381: Worried about having to shave three times during the date?
Just propose, teo. Unexpected, sure, but instant baby-making monkey sex will ensue.
Down on one knee, opens the ring box, looks up with hopeful eyes and says, "Comity?"
I know I'm tearing up.
383: Yeah, but then you've got this baby to deal with. Too much trouble.
You could always enlist a talking dog to help you. And BTW, if this isn't funny I can stop.
The T/lk/ng Dog already helped L/zard/reath get a job! Anything else he does would be above and beyond.
Seriously though, I think that if you're having serious, serious trouble with initiating things then a nice, pre-written note might be a solution (if a rather exotic one.) What do you think?
It's certainly an appealing option, but depending on how the note is presented to her there can be the risk of falling into the pitfalls of e-mail correspondence.
What do you mean? The only risk I can think of is having multiple notes, and giving her the wrong one a la Atonement.
Just make sure the pre-written note doesn't look both generic and weathered.
Make sure you don't look generic and weathered either.
245: it takes a long time if the Court is establishing something new and original but much less if someone's just litigating - it used to be the final court of appeal in employment discrimination cases in the UK quite a lot of the time. There are plenty of precedents from 2003 and 2004 that sharia courts are not compatiable with the ECHR (surprise) so I don't think much more time would need to be wasted.
What do you mean?
Suppose I leave the note for her to find, but she either doesn't find it (a la Tess of the d'Urbervilles) or finds it, reads it, and decides to ignore it (a la e-mail). Then what? I can't very well ask if she got my note, now can I?
If, on the other hand, I give her the note in person, that combines the awkwardness of just asking her with the weirdness of being right there and not just asking her. If you see what I mean.
Make sure you don't look generic and weathered either.
No risk of that, of course.
On the other hand, what if you leave the wrong note for her, and you have wild sex, a la Atonement?
Doesn't that end up with someone getting killed or something? I haven't seen it.
You mean you haven't read it.
It ends up with someone getting accused of rape and being carried off and having all sorts of unfortunate things befall him, but you can probably avoid that if you're canny in your choice of messenger.
You mean you haven't read it.
That too.
I was thinking of giving the note to her in person, as a substitute for physically trying something or asking. It'd definitely be weird, but if it's your most feasible option for initiating something you might want to go for it.
395: Point taken.
It'd definitely be weird, but if it's your most feasible option for initiating something you might want to go for it.
I doubt it would be, really, since it doesn't actually avoid the key issue, which is my inhibition about broaching the subject. That is, my anxiety about saying something to her would just be replaced by anxiety about handing her the note, and the result would likely be the same.
In Teo's case, the wrong note might say something like "Remember to give note about kissing thing to date," not "In my dreams I kiss your cunt, your sweet wet cunt."
400: If it helps to think of it this way, you wouldn't really be broaching the subject, since it's already there on the 'script'. If you're thinking about it, she's probably thinking about it.
The issue is how you're going to make the kissing happen--either you physically initiate it, you ask her (verbally, in writing, by text message, by semaphore), or you wait for her to initiate. Which of these seems the most feasible to you? I think that a note might be best, since it'd probably be easier to hand her one than to look her in the eye and ask her. (It also seems like it'd have at least an OK chance of success, especially if you explain how nervous you are.)
The issue is how you're going to make the kissing happen--either you physically initiate it, you ask her (verbally, in writing, by text message, by semaphore), or you wait for her to initiate. Which of these seems the most feasible to you?
In terms of my natural inclinations, the last. That doesn't seem to work that well, though. In terms of approaches that do seem likely to work, the first is probably easier and more expected, but the second is more in keeping with my style.
I think that a note might be best, since it'd probably be easier to hand her one than to look her in the eye and ask her. (It also seems like it'd have at least an OK chance of success, especially if you explain how nervous you are.)
Just when do you envision me writing this note?
Beforehand. (Writing it on the spot would indeed be bizarre).
350 pwned by 15, basically.
Teo, have you considered the go-for-holding-her-hand option? (Sorry if this approach has been canvassed already.) If she's receptive, you've pretty much established that you're golden when the time comes for smooching. If she's not, it's less embarrassing (I think) than going in for the unwanted kiss, and so easier to get up the nerve to do.
Teo, have you considered the go-for-holding-her-hand option?
See 378. Not quite the same maneuver, but similar risks.
If she's receptive, you've pretty much established that you're golden when the time comes for smooching. If she's not, it's less embarrassing (I think) than going in for the unwanted kiss, and so easier to get up the nerve to do.
Well, yes, but this is really just kicking the can a little further. The issue is summoning the courage to make a gesture that unambiguously indicates romantic intent. The precise nature of that gesture is ultimately immaterial.
Handholding would also work. By the way, what's with the bot? AIM says it's not online.
You can unambiguously indicate romantic intent in a note, you know. Just sayin'.
Whoops--and I even read that not ten minutes ago. I think that, for me, the hand gesture feels simultaneously less presumptuous / invasive and more intimate (paradoxically enough) than arm-over-the-shoulder.
I understand and sympathize with your situation. I've been there and it's not fun. I wish I had something more to say that that.
First 'that' s/b 'than', obviously
I have to admit that, given all the sturm und drang over teo's sex life, I had to suppress a laugh when the recent DCCon's pictures revealed his pretty, pretty face.
This is all actually fairly abstract for me at this point, since (as I mentioned somewhere upthread) situations where a romantic context is assumed from the get-go make it easier to overcome these inhibitions. Online dating, for example, where the indication of romantic interest comes with asking someone out in the first place, or even just contacting them on the site. Also set-ups, one of which is what I'm dealing with now, where the romantic aspect is dealt with before I even enter the picture personally. It's the "is this a date?" ambiguous situations that are particularly common in college that drive me crazy.
307 is awesome.
Teo, say this into the mirror five times before you go out: "How would it be if I were to kiss you now?" Use varying intonations, mismanage the subjunctive, and replace "now" with different intervals (in about a minute, later on tonight, before dawn).
I like the note idea. Let's build on it: Etch-a-Sketch!
414: Yeah, about that. Not a situation likely to garner much sympathy, either.
(Assuming that's the problem, which it may well not be.)
Sidewalk chalk. (if you use etch-a-sketch, be sure to include a line about twiddling her knobs, IYKWIMAITYD).
I recommend thinking about it as much as possible beforehand and definitely talking to others about how you have a mental block (preferably through an entirely written medium like the internet). This is universally recognised as a sound form of therapy which makes overcoming inhibitions much easier.
FFS, yankosphere, can you not just get drunk or something?
Does "yankoshpere" refer to a nationality or a verb?
Teo's not going to write a note. That would require a)hours of tossing away unsatisfactory notes, b)hours of awareness of such a note being in one's pocket without throwing it away. c)the actual act of delivering it, however far removed from the recipient. Kissing a girl, however, only requires a second of balls.
FFS, yankosphere, can you not just get drunk or something?
You britannosphere types seem to say this sort of thing a lot, but the precise mechanism by which it is supposed to work remains somewhat obscure to me.
Anyway, I'm not actually particularly concerned about this, and I continue to talk about it here because people seem to like it rather than because I'm actually going to take any of the advice I'm offered.
A note? Seriously?
Perhaps it's just me, but wouldn't that come across as a bit weird? I can see how in the right context it might come across as charming, but in lots of others ... not.
Perhaps it's just me, but wouldn't that come across as a bit weird?
Indeed. See 394.
re: 423
Being drunk has the effect of lowering inhibitions. So, you're not crippled by fear, worry, introspection, doubt, angst, or whatever. If you're both drunk, even better.
This isn't a mysterious thing.
Hey Teo, How about feeling it out and seeing as it goes? These two generally work best. (Txt message would also be awesome, [both respectful and extremely cute] make sure to sign your name, though - on the off chance that her phone has no caller ID or some such.)
426: Well if that's just it, sure, and that's what I'm actually intending to do. But you sometimes seem to propose it as an alternative to the entire edifice of the American dating system, which sounds great if it would work but I'm skeptical.
423.last has long since been axiomatic.
I shouldn't disparage notes however: I first got laid off a note, and I love her still.
I first got laid off a note
Do tell.
428: They fuck first and date later, don't they? Seems like a decent scheme to me.
re: 428
as an alternative to the entire edifice of the American dating system
Well, it does seem to work that way.
There's less of the agonized worry about which signals you're sending, and whether this finely nuanced gesture really means what it means, and whether the person you are about to go for a drink with fulfills all 19 criteria on your careful considered list, etc.
Note, what's being proposed, on threads where this has been discussed before, isn't 'arrange American style date, get drunk on date, await teh magic'. It's 'go out and get pissed fairly regularly with your mates, meet people, snog drunkenly, possibly go home together and fuck; if pleasurable, arrange to do again. About four weeks into this process realize you now have a girlfriend/boyfriend'.
Also, British women are quite proactive in this process. Which helps the shy.
430: Not much to tell, it was a high school thing. She was hot and shy, I was me. She had her even shyer friend pass me a note that even to this day breaks my heart. I bought her a copy of The Book of Subgenius. We went out for three years, she dumped me when she went to college. You now have the whole story.
Note, what's being proposed, on threads where this has been discussed before, isn't 'arrange American style date, get drunk on date, await teh magic'. It's 'go out and get pissed fairly regularly with your mates, meet people, snog drunkenly, possibly go home together and fuck; if pleasurable, arrange to do again. About four weeks into this process realize you now have a girlfriend/boyfriend'.
Also, British women are quite proactive in this process. Which helps the shy.
Right, I get that. But what I'm saying is that while I'm sure this works great in a British context, it's really not transferable at all to an American one, what with our long history of weird attitudes toward sex. So those of us unfortunate enough to be living in this society as it exists now have to figure out how to accomplish our goals within those constraints rather than try to change society wholesale. (Which, I realize, is not actually what you're suggesting, but it's not a huge leap when the discussion turns to practical issues.)
Maybe I should just go to the UK. It sounds so much nicer.
I think everyone's making a big deal out of it b/c it's easy to overestimate the gravity of the problem when you're looking at it over the Internet, and then the "Help Teo!" reflex sort of kicks in. (Said reflex is strengthened by the amount of time that's been spent discussing other aspects of your romantico-sexual life.) Also, advising/kibitzing is kinda fun.
She was hot and shy, I was me. She had her even shyer friend pass me a note that even to this day breaks my heart. I bought her a copy of The Book of Subgenius. We went out for three years, she dumped me when she went to college. You now have the whole story.
See, why doesn't this sort of thing ever happen to me? I felt the same way when my sister told me how she met her boyfriend (typical college furtive-glances-in-class followed by drunken encounters at parties).
re: 434
Yeah, you're probably right re: the not transferring straightforwardly.
I met the girl I'm seeing now in my college's library, so you never know when lightning will strike.
I have been spending quite a bit of time in a college library recently, come to think of it.
Try using their computer clusters. (We were sitting at computers next to each other, she remarked on the weather as she was getting up to leave, i replied, and the rest is very recent history.)
And yet I am an American, and my dating life exactly matches ttaM's description of British dating life.
A friend of a friend was notorious for meeting girls in the library. So much so that his less successful friend once replied, when asked where X was, 'He's away getting some shit for his stick'.*
* this may be a british idiom, I don't know.
re: 442
Yes, every time this comes about about 1/3 of the Americans say, 'yeah, sounds just like my life'. Or at least, it sounds more like their life than formalized dating.
The quote in 443 is completely foreign to me, though.
Note, what's being proposed, on threads where this has been discussed before, isn't 'arrange American style date, get drunk on date, await teh magic'
although this does not in and of itself seem like an obviously unworkable plan to me, and seems surprisingly underused as a tactic.
re: 443
If some bloke is so stunningly attractive to women that he's got more than he can handle, he's said to be 'beating them off with a shitty stick'. Often used ironically, or in reference to some future state of affairs.
"Aye, once I clear up this case of genital warts and lose 50lbs, I'll be beating them off with a shitty stick."
So, said friend was so overly encumbered with attractive women met in the library, that his (jealous) friend described him as 'away looking for shit for his stick'.
re: 446
Yeah, definitely takes the edge off, anyway.
446. You have to remember that they're not legally allowed to touch the stuff until they're practically middle aged. So unless they restrict their mating rituals to bottle parties thrown by their elder sibs, it's not unreasonable to look for alternatives.
Perhaps Teo is doing a survey of some kind and not actually asking for advice.
If he's serious, I would agree that Unfogged is perhaps the worst place for Teo go for advice in initiating relationships, unless he is wisely trying to avoid relationships.
Probably just eavesdropping on the girls here when they're talking about boys would be more useful than listening to the girls' advice. When advice is given, there will be social acceptability bias.
what with our long history of weird attitudes toward sex
And yet, somehow, high schoolers seem to be having plenty of it today, just as we did 30+ years ago when I was one of them.
You have to remember that they're not legally allowed to touch the stuff until they're practically middle aged. >/i>
For contrast, here's Bjork:
"I come from a country where, from the age of 15, you drink a litre of vodka every Friday, straight from the bottle."I watched my grandparents doing that and it's been my pattern, just like it has been my family's release for a thousand years.
"Alcohol is how people in Iceland lose themselves, switch their conscience off and run riot. It's the same for me with my music - to me it stands for freedom."
re: 451
Yeah, I started drinking at about 12. That wasn't completely atypical where I'm from. Not regularly at that age, however. Didn't start regularly drinking till about 14 and in pubs from around 15.
Who would have guessed that Bjork would be an Icelandic traditionalist?
Of course, there's always the "hang out on IRC together, get drunk in the privacy of your own home, have messy cybersex" route.
Teo, I think the thing is that you're always talking about wanting to find a girl who really seems to like you and want you. But girls want this too. And guys who hold hands but don't make a move are not showing amorous interest. They just signaling, "I could stand it if you kissed me, but I don't want to be responsible for the consequences; I want all the consequences to be on you," which is fine if she's really wild about you, but not all the ardor can always fall to her.
I think what you might be signaling, in waiting for signs of her overwhelming ardor, is a lack of interest. A note is not going to communicate anything more than hand-holding; it's just going to once again place all the responsibility for creating intimacy in her court. As much as you want someone to be passionate about you, she wants someone to be passionate about her, too.
I have very often been the one who makes the first move, and I especially don't mind doing it when it seems like something he's capable of doing himself. But many, many times I've been put in a situation where a guy's words or hand-holdy actions seem to be communicating "It's not worth the risk to kiss you, but if you do it, I won't be grossed out" because he's still sitting back in his chair and trying to look occupied with other thoughts. I'll do it, but it makes me not want to. It feels manipulative and selfish.
Ways to make it not seem manipulative and selfish:
If you touch her knee or hand, lean in a little. It shows that you're not just sitting back expecting her to create all the intimacy out of nothing.
AWB is right. You have to take a chance in the dating world. Don't be afraid to swing and miss. Go have fun.
Kissing a girl, however, only requires a second of balls.
So if you've only one testicle, get used to kissing guys.
Getting rejected takes even more practice than getting the response you want. Acting like it's all up to her to worry about rejection because, well, for you it's special because you might die if rejected---well, welcome to the world. If you really want to kiss her, you'll kiss her. If you don't kiss her, I'd start asking yourself whether you like her all that much to begin with. You might be thinking so hard about whether she likes you that you've forgotten to wonder if you're actually attracted to her.
I bitch about not having much success over the past year, romantically, but, to be honest, it's just getting harder to find people I actively want. And if I'm not making a move, it's easy to sit back and think, "What's wrong with him? Aren't I attractive enough?" when really, I'm sitting there communicating, despite myself, that I really don't want him.
I was very shy about making the first move when I was teo's age. I kept waiting for some certain sign from the girl.
"Ok, she has taken off her bra and is pulling my pants off. Does this mean it is ok to kiss her??"
If you really want to kiss her, you'll kiss her.
I think you might be being a tiny bit harsh here. It doesn't really come as naturally as that until you're a bit in the habit, so to speak. Don't forget the stage in your life when you're paralysed by thinking, "How do I do this?" Not saying that applies in this case, but still...
I'm just saying, it's obviously not productive to sit around asking people for advice about how to do it; people give Teo intricate advice and possible routines for success here on a weekly basis. Why is he not putting any of this advice into action? My guess is he's focusing way too much on whether she's invested in him, without even thinking about whether he's invested enough in her to do anything about it.
I don't mean to make light of inexperience and fear. I just don't think sitting around thinking about how monumental your inexperience and fear are is going to change anything, and it's ultimately selfish, because she's probably got some inexperience/fear issues herself.
Note-writing is out.
will is right. Being shy is okay, but it's just a kiss. You've already experienced pretty much the worst that can happen if the kiss isn't wanted. And chances are, the kiss is wanted or at least not unexpected. And you're a handsome guy. I don't know about the girls you're dating, but if I were on a date with a handsome young man, and he didn't make a move to kiss me, I'd probably conclude* (perhaps wrongly) that he wasn't shy (I mean, look at him! He's cute! He probably has girls all over him!), he just wasn't all that interested in me. It's a risk for her, too, plus she might have the let-the-guy-make-the-first-move/all sorts of nonsense on the brain.
*Okay, I'd probably be impatient and kiss the guy, but I tended to date guys I'd known as friends for a while I could judge whether they were shy or not.
because she's probably got some inexperience/fear issues herself.
Well, of course! Because otherwise she is a slut. We wouldnt want him dating some hussy.
Here's another vote for drinking -- if I'd been soberer when young, I wouldn't ever have gotten laid.
"Honey, I think we have a great relationship. I think it could be even better if we registered a legally binding agreement with the state. I'm not sure how you feel about this, but I think we should also perform a ritual invoking our Deity, inviting Him or Her to join our relationship. If we can do it in front of a bunch of family we otherwise never see and don't really like, that would be the best of all."
"I almost forgot, here's a blood diamond. Thanks to the artificial scarcity, I was able to pay more than 40 times what it's actually worth!"
462:
Teo, I am certainly not the handsome devil that you are. But, plenty of girls have been willing to kiss me. Heck, some of them even really want to kiss me a lot.
But, it took me a long time to figure out that the odds were good that the girl wanted to kiss me as much as I wanted to kiss her.
AWB is right that it is ultimately not fair to the girl to wait for her to kiss you. Do the right thing and kiss her.
A kiss isn't that big a deal. Heck, AWB, Apo, and Witt practically tried to slip me some tongue when we first met. (Ok, maybe not Witt.)
You know, all the UK types get a weird picture of Americans from listening to Unfogged dating conversations. There's a lot more random drunken hooking up among Americans generally than there is among Unfogged commenters, at least the ones who talk about dating here. It still seems more fraught and nervewracking than it sounds from a UK perspective, but it certainly happens.
I'm way late to this thread, but I just wanted to second the suggestion above about hiring a professional to care for a mentally ill relative during the wedding/reception. I have a schizophrenic aunt who can be sweet as pie or can have loud, screaming tantrums, depending on the day. We hired a woman to take care of her during the reception and it worked out wonderfully. My aunt did not have to miss out and her siblings were able to enjoy themselves without having to worry about caring for her the entire time.
462 is actually all the advice anybody needs. That and the fact that if you try to kiss somebody and miss, it's actually funny, not appalling. But that can wait.
I just wanted to second the suggestion above about hiring a professional to care for a mentally ill relative during the wedding/reception.
I missed this one above.
I really agree with this one.
Obviously, it is your special day, but, please do not exclude the mentally ill or mentally disabled. Often, they really enjoy these events.
458 is pretty key. From the outside, particularly with someone new, it is really, really hard to tell the difference between nervous but would really like to kiss you and nervous but isn't sure about this whole thing.
The latter isn't going to light any fires. And, like it or not most social groupings here still fall back on a guy-makes-the-move dynamic, so if you aren't doing that, she'll second guess.
You know, all the UK types get a weird picture of Americans from listening to Unfogged dating conversations.
My view is a bit skewed, because the dynamic ttaM describes is pretty much what we were like at 14-15. Less accepted though, and probably a bit extreme. I have a little but of experience of the type in UK (and Scotland, for that matter) around those years, and didn't find it all that different except that `hey, who's the foreign guy' thing probably was the biggest effect. But I ran into more of the `fraught and nervewracking' here, than I ever did there.
Let It Bleed by the Stones just came on my Ipod.
The lyrics are appropriate for this thread.
468: I definitely agree. I think a big factor is that the kind of person who spends half their life online and likes to talk to imaginary Internet people is less likely to be the kind of person who goes in for the drunken hookup scene, at least when they're in college.
I'm going to ignore much of what I said last night and give a vote for just trying to kiss her. It's really not so bad, and something you could try if you're worried that she's not into you is leaning close to her and tilting your head like you're about to kiss her. I feel pretty safe in saying that if she's interested she'll cover the rest of the distance, and then you'll be in business.
True, some of us got the drunken hookup scene mostly out of our system in middle school.
For some reason I still can't understand, I have a lot more success here than in the UK. It may have been the oddity of my college town, where no girls really wanted to date the American guy, but the UK has been an enormous dead zone in my hooking-up career. So it's not good for everyone.
Also, drunken hookups in the US seem to require a few friends to go out with who are good at that sort of thing. I have a guy friend in the area who's the pleasant, garrulous sort with a liver of iron, and he's perfect to go drinking with and end up meeting plenty of new people. If you can find a couple of those, you're much closer to golden.
It's really not so bad, and something you could try if you're worried that she's not into you is leaning close to her and tilting your head like you're about to kiss her. I feel pretty safe in saying that if she's interested she'll cover the rest of the distance, and then you'll be in business.
Heh. Or, if you're both incredibly shy high-schoolers, you could both get stuck like that waiting for the other one to cover the distance, and then crack up helplessly, stopping laughing at intervals to see if either one of you had come up with the initiative to actually start kissing the other. We eventually started making out, but it took ages.
Reaching back to earlier in the thread, I vote that Jackmormon needs an Unfogged nickname for her honey. m.leblanc, too. Step up to the plate, women, or we'll have to do it for you.
And when Unfogged steps up to the plate, he's named "shivbunny."
Also, drunken hookups in the US seem to require a few friends to go out with who are good at that sort of thing. I have a guy friend in the area who's the pleasant, garrulous sort with a liver of iron, and he's perfect to go drinking with and end up meeting plenty of new people. If you can find a couple of those, you're much closer to golden.
That's true. Or work in a place with lots of people roughly your own age. My friends here seem to go boozing with their workmates more often than sounds the norm in Unfoggedia.
That said, if I was suddenly single, right now, I wouldn't have an immediate circle of 'getting pissed and chatting to random strangers' friends to go out with either and would be stumped.
I might have gone with "badass dynamite guy."
That said, if I was suddenly single, right now, I wouldn't have an immediate circle of 'getting pissed and chatting to random strangers' friends to go out with either and would be stumped.
Oh please. Isn't it clear by now that women race to the Scot?
Maybe it's just me, but alot of times these conversations wind up making it sound like this is all fairly easy for the everyone and that Teo is just unusually apprehensive about these things. Maybe that's true on average, but I can definitely relate to where Teo's at. Horrible example, but the Ugly Naked Guy and I spent three solid months of nervous flirting before we finally managed the first kiss, partly due to shyness, partly due to my stupid hangup about whether or not the girl should make the first move.
I'll add a vote for the drinking thing -- in moderation. A little dull the inhibitions is good; sloppy drunk is sort of unattractive. I'll also advocate, though, for just developing more of a habit of the platonic peck as greeting thing. Those aren't so intimidating, and can be pretty effectively converted in the presence of an appropriate spark. But most importantly, we should all be working for a society where it's just as common for the girl to make the first move as for the guy.
re: 484
Well, yes. I meant the hypothetical 'me' that lacks megawatt sexual charisma. Ahem. The actual me would be looking for manure, for my stick.
487: Well, yes. But I've recently concluded that I need to improve my taste/judgment first.
teo, more gratuitous advice and another distaff vote for "just kiss her." Di is absolutely right that it's not easy, but it's such a relief to have done it.
I've always found the end-of-date kiss the easiest to initiate. It feels lower pressure than in the middle of a date, I guess because it's a traditional Moment. I think, though, that you have to make up your mind in advance that you're absolutely going to do it, or it's too easy to chicken out at the last minute.
teo, more gratuitous advice and another distaff vote for "just kiss her." Di is absolutely right that it's not easy, but it's such a relief to have done it.
I've always found the end-of-date kiss the easiest to initiate. It feels lower pressure than in the middle of a date, I guess because it's a traditional Moment. I think, though, that you have to make up your mind in advance that you're absolutely going to do it, or it's too easy to chicken out at the last minute.
Damnit, Unfogged is acting all wonky for me today.
Perhaps I was insufficiently clear. My advice was not: "grab her hand and stare into the middle distance, and then wait for her to do something." I also recommend that you not belch loudly while leaning in for a kiss. Further clarifications forthcoming as they occur to me--I'm pretty confident that we can make a finite list of things not to do!
Obviously, it is your special day, but, please do not exclude the mentally ill or mentally disabled. Often, they really enjoy these events.
I feel bad for my phrasing above, which made it sound as if we didn't want to include our Dads because they are mentally ill. It's more that we are afraid to include them because they are frequently really fucking nasty and cruel, and more likely to be so if they sense someone's intimidated or worried about that. It's hard to know how much of that are their illnesses and how much is personality, but I do think the suggestion of a professional's a great one, as we would want to include them, but wouldn't want to have to drop everything to deal with the fallout if things turned ugly.
Or work in a place with lots of people roughly your own age.
I think this might actually be most of my current problem. I strongly advise all and sundry to stay as far away as possible from the world of law.
Thanks for all the advice, everyone, but as I noted above I don't really talk about this stuff with the intention of using what people say here to solve my problems. I do find it interesting, however, to see other people's reactions and suggestions.
494: And we wouldn't have it any other way. After all, if you solved your problems, what would we talk about for, oh 15% of the time or so?
Yeah, I've been worried about what will happen to Unfogged if I ever am successful.
I'm assuming you'd have the decency not to tell us, and to continue stringing us along with imaginary dating woes.
Unfogged will go dark for 48 hours while everybody gets drunk. What sort of attitude is that "if"?
We could declare a blogtional holiday, to be observed annually.
I'm assuming you'd have the decency not to tell us, and to continue stringing us along with imaginary dating woes.
You'd think so, but I don't think I'm that creative. Or decent.
What sort of attitude is that "if"?
A cynical, pessimistic one, of course.
LB, you do realise that you're not talking to Teo, but to one of the team of Jessica Alba look-alikes he gets to comment while he's busy with the others...
Hey, are we meeting Cala down in NYC tomorrow?
I'm pretty confident that we can make a finite list of things not to do!
As a romantic particularist, I disagree.
We could declare a blogtional holiday, to be observed annually.
This is a great idea! teo, if you could arrange for this to happen in the next month it'd be great; February is lacking a good holiday for getting sloshed.
"I'm pretty confident that we can make a finite list of things not to do!"
As a romantic particularist, I disagree.
This could be a great thread! What moves are a deal-breaker at the going-in-for-a-kiss stage?
February is lacking a good holiday for getting sloshed.
On the contrary. One is coming up in only two days.
Alas! I believe that, now that I'm out of gin, the only alcohol I have at home consists of various eaux de vie. Mind, I've got a lot of it. But getting drunk on distilled quince is t3h lame.
What is the appropriate alcohol for sloshedness on Valentine's Day, dear w-lfs-n? I don't like gin.
As an alcoholic particularist, I'd say it depends on circumstances. It might even be gin, because you don't like it.
It probably depends on whether you're getting sloshed alone or in company, and if in company, what sort of company. IOW, Merganser's right. You might want to go beyond the mere specification of alcohol to drinking vessel and environment generally (cheap gin from a cracked mug).
For the Fuck Valentine's Day All Girls Drink-A-Thon annual event, it was traditional to drink Chianti.
Bourbon and tears.
Sweet and salty!
Bourbon I've got. Tears-- well, we'll see.
Merganser probably means something more like "particularist about alcohol" than like "particularist who is an alcoholic".
Bourbon and tears.
A few drops of water opens up the booze, and the salt adds savor. I speculate, in fact, that the next trend in fancy salt will be salt harvested from the tears of broken-hearted men and women, to add some poignancy to caramels and whatnot.
Teo, if you hold an International Quirkyalone Day party at a local bar, I will so buy you a yak or something.
You know how weepy I get when I'm hungry.
I thought that was just a ploy to get us in to places we didn't have reservations.
Teo, if you hold an International Quirkyalone Day party at a local bar, I will so buy you a yak or something.
Does going to a bar by myself and drinking count?