Public marriage proposals must die

Public antagonism toward the person rejecting a marriage proposal must be considered by those initiating the proposal, but of course must be discounted if they carry on with it anyway. Here the audience is upset that the performance—because that’s what it is—isn’t playing out how they’d like. They know nothing about this relationship between two strangers. This is the anger over an actor missing his lines, not a show of solidarity with someone seeing their relationship possibly crumble. This “romantic gesture” seems part of a general attitude of dismissal we have regarding others’ preferences or sense of security.

So much of what is considered “romantic” is actually inappropriate, pressuring, or unnerving. Persistence in asking someone out is seen as a sign of strength, not creepy; determination is a measure of love, not entitlement; publically asking someone to put a most powerful seal of approval on your private lives is seen as grand and romantic, not inappropriate, embarrassing, and forceful. Our favorite films reinforce this, and almost all popular love songs contain lyrics that look like they were scrawled on a basement wall plastered with sticky pictures of people with their eyes cut out. (People, including myself until recently, couldn’t tell Sting’s “Every Breath You Take” wasn’t intended as a love song. They still don’t realize it’s about a stalker. That’s how blurred the lines are between romance and creepy.)