Will You Marry Me?

Using a public forum for a marriage proposal is a strange thing.We've all seen it somewhere- some guy popping the question to his gal during halftime at Giants Stadium; renting billboards on his intended's daily commuting route; grabbing the mic during a papal address, etc.

I couldn't do that, even if I had the resources to do something like interrupting a football game.

I can picture it though- at halftime I'd have it all arranged: First off, Led Zeppelin (including a resurrected John Bonham) reunites and performs 'The Ocean', after which I lead my amazed beloved on stage .
One hundred white doves are released.
Jimmy Page hands me the ring.
I get down on bended knee.
She starts crying and whispers...

"We need to talk."

In front of 70,000 people and a live TV audience, she tells me that she's in love with the home team's quarterback, then dashes onto the field, embracing him.
The crowd goes wild! This moment is replayed over and over again on every news and sports show for days, nay, for weeks.. I am thrust into stardom using the Pete Best Method...

Nah, that's not for me.

Howzabout the Web? I bet that's been done before. In fact, there are actual for-pay sites that help you along with the virtual courtship process. Strangely, the methods advocated by this site sound eerily like cyber- stalking:


1)Create a website asking your beloved to marry you. She'll be able to share it with her friends, family, attorney and sex-crimes detectives.
2)Send her an eCard that will be delivered to her at work. Every day.
3)Set a reminder to popup in her Outlook every fifteen minutes and have it be a proposal (or a wedding date suggestion !). Better yet, download Bonzi Buddy and let it remind her. Watch her eyes light up.
4)Put it in her Palm Pilot. Heh heh.
5)Send a text message to her cell phone once an hour.
6)Send a wireless email.
7)Send her a text message on her cell phone asking her if she got your email.
8)Is she always working at a computer? Set up the screen saver to be the proposal, and be there when it pops up. To do this on a windows machine, simply right click on your desktop and select 'properties'. Click on the 'screensaver' tab. Select '3D Text' and then click 'settings' to change the text. While you're on her PC change all her settings to your own preferences. Read her email .Tell her she better get used to it. She'll thank you later.
9)If you are on an online message board, forum, etc, ask her in a post or put it in your signature.
If you are in a chat room , remember to invite everyone in the room , including Sexieyez363436.
10)If you met on the internet, propose via e-mail or instant message. Now is the time to explain why you don't look exactly like the guy in the photos you've been sending.
11)Encrypt your proposal into a Sony-supported computer virus for her to find when she turns on her computer. A yes/no window will appear. Clicking "no" will cause complete OS failure. So will clicking "yes".


There's gotta be a better way.
Skydiving comes to mind.
On the way down, I'll casually produce a printed note asking the Question.
If she says "NO" , I'll just unhook my chute and plummet to my death.

I'm kidding, of course. It's really hard to remove a parachute harness in free-fall.

It's a moot point anyway. I haven't had a date since my high school prom (1984). Actually, I didn't go to it. My girlfriend was older than me and we had better things to do, none of which included marriage plans, although I did receive several funeral suggestions from her dad.

Since then I might as well have been living in a monastery.

Still, maybe one day I'll meet someone special- as unlikely as that seems, it could happen. Before I got sick,I always used to think I'd just wake up after a five or ten year drug and alcohol binge and find out that I've got a wife , two kids, no job and a two-digit credit rating.

I've seen it happen. More than once.

Ask my brother if you don't believe me.