Tag Engagements

Once Upon a Time They Lived Happily Ever After

Michael 2 Comments

Ahhh. Valentine’s Day is here. Called the most romantic day of the year, around six million Americans will become engaged tomorrow. But that won’t be the biggest day of the year for that. That distinction belongs to Christmas. Christmas and Christmas Eve actually. It depends on which day you unwrap your presents. Since there is not a Valentine’s Eve to spread the festivities over, either you’re going to be romantic on the 14th or you wait till Easter and work a ring into an egg I suppose.

snowpeopleIt’s fitting that Christmas and Valentine’s share people’s affection for romance, or at least for a desire to formally get together. Both celebrations focus on love. Unfortunately, when you don’t have a focus for your love on Valentine’s Day you probably notice it more.

As a guy, I know about losing your focus. We do it with alarming regularity. No offense to the gay community but if it wasn’t for men screwing up relationships with women, the romantic comedy movie genre would be a wasteland. It’s the perfect formula – boy meets girl, boy does something incredibly stupid, boy loses girl, boy apologizes, girl gives boy second chance, boy and girl live happily ever after or until the sequel whichever comes first. Art mimics life. Actually, that’s not the formula. Usually it’s boy does something credibly stupid. The incredible part is how often girl gives boy that second chance.

Another somewhat ominous tie between Christmas and Valentine’s is the anti-romance factor. January is the most popular month for divorce filings. Apparently those Christmas/New Year’s/Holiday parties are the perfect settings for boy does something credibly stupid and girl doesn’t fancy that second chance. But the power of Valentine’s Day shows itself in that a good chunk of those filings are withdrawn by the end of February. And the better part of those reconciliations never end up at the Clerk of Courts office again. Perhaps the mid-February apology is stronger than the end of December transgression.

No other time of the year displays as great a forgiveness factor than the Valentine season.heart So my advice to any guys reading this (and that includes any guys whose girls have not so surreptitiously passed this under their noses), is don’t wait for the boy does something stupid step and move right to boy apologizes. Heavens know we’ve done something stupid whether girl noticed it or not. If you really have any desire to move onto boy and girl live happily ever after, don’t take any chances. Make love, not excuses.

That’s what I think. Really. How ‘bout you?

Surprise! Beyond the PDA

Michael Leave a comment

No, we’re not talking personal digital assistants.  Are they even still out there?  What we’re talking about are public displays of affection.  In general, when tastefully done (which unfortunately isn’t all that often), PDAs are just fine.  Walking hand in hand down the street, arms linked while strolling through a park (yes, people still stroll), an unexpected kiss in an elevator.  Even She and He have displayed affection publicly.  The most public was being caught on the Kiss-Cam at an NHL game in front of 17,000 of our newest, closest friends.  We later found out that there were some among those 17,000 who knew us before our 15 seconds of fame and wanted to know how we managed to end up on that video screen.  Just hanging around acting like a couple we supposed.

These are true displays of affection.  Not the almost public displays of erotica that some seem to think are perfectly acceptable.  And not the newest wave to hit coupledom, the public displays of surprise engagements.

Now that the Olympics are over and the NHL is back to its regular schedule, we’re certain there will be several “Will you marry me?” messages on hockey scoreboards across the league.  You couldn’t get through the football season without seeing someone proposing, along with the requisite surprise response, on the Monday morning news.  And if the asker happens to be a celebrity, the sky and/or television schedule is the limit.  Talk show hosts have lost control of their own shows when someone gets into his head that he is going to use that show as the spring board to domesticity.  Since we brought up the Olympics, it too has been the site of several proposals.  Before the 2010 Winter Games, torchbearer Ryan Clarke proposed to his girlfriend as he ended his torch relay run.  Then as the 2010 games were underway, America skier Billy Demong proposed to his longtime girlfriend after winning a gold medal in the Nordic Combined.

Where do these people come from?  We recently heard the story of a high school junior who rented a billboard to ask his girlfriend to the prom.  If he’s starting out using a public forum as big as a billboard to ask a girl to a dance, imagine him in another 10 years and what his marriage proposal may be like.

We’re not so certain the “surprise” proposals are either fair or surprises.  It seems that it would be almost cruel for someone to turn down such a public display.  We’ve often seen the very public proposal on the news and the answer has never been “No.”  We suppose that’s because nobody wants to be branded as the cold hearted you-know-what when someone makes such a grand gesture in front of so many.  Someday, someone may say no and the habit will start to die out.  Who wants to take the risk that the outcome might not be what one wants?  That sounds almost too much like reality.

The real reality of it is that of all the possible public displays of affection out there, if you’re going to end up on a scoreboard somewhere, make it on the Kiss-Cam.  It’s easy. It’s fun.  And you get your 15 seconds of fame.  Just hang around and act like a couple.

Now, that’s what we think. Really. How ‘bout you?