It’s almost impossible to surprise GoddessJ with anything. She usually manages to ferret out whatever you were planning to surprise her with long before you’d planned for her to know. The day I proposed to her, she knew ahead of time that I had the ring and was planning to do it that evening, and so did her parents and the dozen or so other family members that had been invited over for dinner and celebrations. I’m sure she expected me to get down on one knee the moment I saw her, but I was determined to surprise her one way or another, and to do it in front of everyone present.

She was quite crusty by the time dinner rolled around, and I know that everyone was wondering when I was going to get around to it. Just then, I saw that her family’s cat had taken up residence on the dining room floor, and had an ah-ha moment. I got down on my knees to pet him, let a worried expression cross my face, and urgently called her over. When she arrived, I popped one leg up so that I was on one knee, raised and opened the box with the ring (which I had concealed in my palm when I got the idea), and said, “would you marry me?”

She stood there in shock, staring at the ring for a good thirty seconds (while everyone else slowly realized what was happening in their midst), before she could crank her jaw back into place to say yes. 🙂

I was reminded of this by contrast to an article I saw the other day, because this has to be the least romantic way of proposing marriage that I’ve ever heard of. If you can’t work up the courage to ask the girl to her face, can you really expect her to say yes?