The Big Issue

All week The Man had been making strange, out-of-place comments without really following them through. Like about my smoking: "well, you'd better quit that- it will look bad in the photos".

"What photos?" I'd ask. "The wedding photos".

I chose to ignore them and instead wait for him to stop beating around the bush and put his thoughts into less ambiguous and obscure sentences. 

It was the last day. The morning of my departure. We were getting ready to leave for the airport. The mood was strange. And so was he.

He kept talking about how he was scared of asking me The Question- having asked that twice before with those relationships changing for the worse, eventually ending. "I don't want things to end with you," he said. I rolled my eyes pointing out that in overwhelming majority of cases that sort of an expression of love and commitment means change, yes,  BUT FOR THE BETTER.

He said how he was worried; worried that he could never meet my expectations. I told him he'd better man up and make a decision to be worthy of those expectations. (This was clearly no time for sympathy and lenience...)

I walked to the kitchen to make sure I hadn't forgotten anything. He followed. He looked at me with a strange expression on his face. "So, I guess you'll just have to become Mrs. Man then", he said. I couldn't believe what I was hearing. "Aren't you supposed to ask me something first?"

"So, will you?" he asked.

I stared at him in disbelief. As far as bad proposals go, this was taking the first prize. "That's it? This is what I've been waiting for?"

"Well, you know I'm not good at this kind of things", he tried to defend himself.

"Well I think you'd better try!" I cried. "This is not the story I intend to remember. Aren't you even going to go down on one knee? I did. And where's the build-up?"

"What build-up?" he asked, puzzled.

"The big speech! You've seen enough Richard Curtis films to know how it's supposed to be done! You're supposed to say how I'm the best thing that's ever happened to you and..."

Before I could continue he got down on one knee. And seeing how everything was already going all wrong, hurt his knee. 

"So, you're the best thing that's ever happened to me..." he started.

Sure enough, by this time I was crying. But not out of happiness. He pointed to the corner of his eye and claimed there were tears there too. Not that I could see any.

He held my face in his hands, looked at me softly and asked: "Will you do the honour of marrying me?"

"So this is it? Your proposal?" I asked. He smiled and nodded. 

"Yeah, well...ok then," I replied, equally enthusiastically. 

We just stared each other silently. "So... what... we're like... engaged now?" I asked. "Yep," he smiled. "We are."