Make proposals intimate again.

♥️

Before we go any further, I want to put this out there; love is very intimate. Regardless of how many people know your love story, it is still very personal. Very, very intimate.

That being said, it’s important to note that the decision to ask someone to spend the rest of their life with you is also an intimate one, a decision you make in love, in awe, in reverence, in everything you hold dear.

I’m saying this just in case the internet has made you forget how intimate these things should be. Just in case your mind has been conditioned to expect a public, cinematic performance every time. Because what are we even doing? What is going on? What in the name of embarrassment is actually going on?

I’ve seen the video. You probably have too. It’s been making the rounds, reposted with a caption that always says some version of the same thing - see as this girl just embarrass this man. My best friend sent it to me too, expressing her displeasure.

It was a lady’s sign-out from university, you could see her all smiles, holding her flower bouquet and the gifts the man had bought her. She was clearly excited that “her man” had shown up for her, bearing gifts. Things were going well. Until they weren’t.

He got on one knee, brought out the proposal ring, and everything turned violent. She slapped him, several times, and abused him thoroughly.

Now, this is something you might do to a stranger who touches you offensively, or even just touches you at all. This is something you might do to someone you’ve warned repeatedly to leave you alone, to stay out of your way. Not to someone you were chummy with minutes before. Smiling. Accepting gifts. All of it.

Was the proposal an accident? Did you just fall into it? Were you not aware that the build-up, the emotions, the gifts, the relationship that must have been going on for years, would eventually arrive at a proposal?

Makes me wonder what goes on in people’s relationships. You don’t have conversations? You’re not honest about your stand, or your place in the relationship? Or what? Like, what exactlyy?

Of course the gifts aren’t a guarantee that things were going to get permanent, nobody’s disputing that. You don’t owe anybody a “yes” because he paid your fees or bought you a bouquet. But come on nau. Open your mouth and talk early, that you’re just in this for the benefit. That there’s someone else. That you don’t want to get married. That you’re deceiving him. That you don’t want a public proposal, or any proposal, from him. Open your grown-up mouth and talk, and stop leading people on for God’s sake.

You’ll have sex and do all the intimate things in this world except have the one conversation that actually matters. I don’t get it.

Then the proposal comes, in public, because he thought you’d earned that grand gesture, and you resort to abuse, violence, embarrassment, for someone you claimed to love. Someone who isn’t a stranger. There were polite ways to decline. There should have been conversations leading up to that point, long before a ring was ever bought.

It’s not even compulsory to get married. Nobody’s forcing you into forever. But you can’t want to eat your cake and have it too, enjoy the benefits, the gifts, the attention, the relationship, and then act like the person offering you a future is the villain for asking.

We can do better as human beings, and it starts with something so simple: be honest and be with someone you actually like. Someone you can imagine a future with, and say so. Someone you’re not stringing along because the attention feels good, or the gifts are nice.

Because if you actually like the person, if you’re honest with yourself about where this is going, the proposal, public or not, isn’t a trap. It’s just a question you already know the answer to.

This is where I come back to where I started: love is intimate. So let the proposal be intimate too, whether that’s just the two of you, or friends and family, people you genuinely love and who genuinely know your story. Not a crowd of strangers on the street shouting “say yes, say yes” at a woman they’ve never met, cheering for an answer that isn’t theirs to demand.

Regardless of what the situation is, I don’t think anyone’s first response should be violence. Nope.

Whatever you’re feeling, channel it somewhere useful. Bad systems. The government. Traffic. Anything. But not the person who showed up with a nice ring, flowers and chocolates and a heart he thought you already knew.

Please, let’s be better human beings. Keep your love intimate. Of course you can share the parts you want other people to see.🥰

I genuinely hope real lovers take over and make proposals romantic and intimate again!♥️

Love,

Hosanna.🫧