Recently, I was scrolling through my Facebook timeline and saw that one of my friends had finally proposed to his girlfriend. I was super excited because it had been a long-time coming, but as I read the details of the proposal — namely the location where he asked — I had a super duper pause moment: that’s where he decided to pop the question?!
I won’t bust out the exact restaurant since my name is on this, but think Chiles, Applebees, or some other national restaurant chain that people go to every single week for a cheap Friday night meal. Like it wasn’t even Black Folks’ holy grail fancy restaurant location Red Lobster (don’t act like most of us didn’t realize Red Lobster wasn’t a top notch eatery until we were 22), it was a basic, no type of ambiance having, run of the mill place to grab a bite. Not the place I personally would want to be asked something so monumental.
Now before you go calling me boughie or hit me me with the “you just wish someone was asking you to marry them” shade, let me explain my surprise just a bit. I knew this friend was going to propose for a long time now — actually everyone did. For starters, he and his then-girlfriend had already moved in together as a cost-saving measure for the wedding they knew they would be planning in the near future. And when it came down to when he was going to actually pop the question, he initially said it would be during the Thanksgiving holiday with his fiancee’s family. When that didn’t happen, the Christmas holiday seemed to be the next date, but then financial obstacles deterred that plan and the decision was put on hold indefinitely. He told everyone “it’s coming” and after Valentine’s Day came and went, I figured he was looking at winter holidays again and by the time everyone was wishing people a Merry Christmas, we’d also be saying “congratulations!” So that’s why when on a random week-day afternoon I saw it finally went down at a place I’d only pop in because I could get a drink and dinner for $15 I was a little…shocked.
To make sure I wasn’t trippin, I took a survey of female friends and co-workers and they all agreed that as they say in real estate, “location is everything.” Now I haven’t had the chance to get all the details from my friend to see whether there was some sort of sentimental value attached to that restaurant, but that situation aside, I started to think about where I’d want someone to ask me that question and the truth is location is just as important as all the other details that go into a proposal. The same way you wouldn’t want someone to pull a Lil’ Scrappy and ask, “so is you gone marry a ni**a,” most women have places they either dream of being asked, or would absolutely die if someone popped the question there.
For instance, I’ve heard some girls say they would hate for their boyfriend to take them on a talk show and surprise them with the big question, or to have a “would you marry be Monica” proposal plastered on the jumbo tron at any type of sporting event. A lot of people also don’t want a crowd around and prefer that it’s a Tony Tony Tone, “it’s just me and you” type of occasion. The idea isn’t that it has to be romantic, but I would think intimacy would be the operative word here.
No situation lends itself more to the different strokes for different folks type of philosophy than marriage and all that goes with it, including the proposal and wedding, but I think it’s safe to say if you’re going to ask such a life-changing question, you had better do it in a place where there aren’t a bunch of random people sitting around drinking beers and yelling expletives at 42-inch TV screens while crunching on peanuts sprawled all over the floor. Unless you’re that type of gal.
What do you think? Does it matter where a guy pops the question?
