This is One Thing, a column with tips on how to live.
My engagement was a foregone conclusion. I had been with my girlfriend since 2018—after meeting on a dating app and rendezvousing at one of the worst Italian restaurants in New York City—before we moved in with each other on March 1, 2020. It was there, during those listless, death-haunted nights in front of the television, that we truly learned what love is. We had talked about marriage with great enthusiasm in the years since. When I informed her last September that she ought to clear out her Friday for an unspecified “date night,” she knew exactly what was coming. She even went as far as sending me a Google Doc containing links to rings she liked.
And yet, anxiety gnawed at my guts as the proposal date drew closer. Who could blame me? How is anyone supposed to maintain emotional equilibrium throughout one of the biggest days of your life? Would I keep my wits about me? Would I say something stupid? Was I capable of completely derailing my relationship at the very moment we were set to codify it?
The solution to those uncertainties, I learned, is simple. Propose immediately. Like, right at the beginning of the night. Do not wait for dessert, do not wait for a twilight walk on the beach, and please do not spend the entirety of an Italian vacation waiting for a furtive “right moment” which will surely never materialize. No. No! Get down on one knee and pop the damn question, so you can both spend the rest of the night ensconced in dizzy joy, with all the pressure drained away.
We got engaged at home, privately, in the early evening. I brandished a bottle of Champagne, a bouquet of flowers, and an electric sense of romantic abandon. We laughed, we cried, we savored the white-hot intensity of the moment, and then we spent the next several hours delighting in the glorious afterglow. I outlined the rest of the plan for the night, which involved a reservation at a neighborhood bistro and a rapturous party with all of our friends, all unburdened by the specter of expectation—the idea that all of this pomp and circumstance was building toward something we both knew was coming. Instead, all there was left to do was celebrate—the best part of any engagement—which can only be truly relished if you get the proposal out of the way as soon as possible.
I understand that this approach might not suit everyone’s taste. A proposal at the summit of Mount Everest, or, I don’t know, amidst the embers of a weeklong Ayahuasca retreat certainly has a sense of occasion and makes for a better anecdote than “he asked me to marry him … in our living room.” But if you are a tad more modest in your standards, I implore you to take my advice. There is a reason we get the wedding part of weddings out of the way in about 20 minutes. Do yourself a favor and get to the fun part.
