Getting Engaged Is Embarrassing

I’ve never been congratulated more for doing less

June Beaux
Human Parts

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Photo by Mel on Unsplash

“Will you marry me?”

“What’s this?” I said, holding a too-small silver ring that looked nothing like one I would have chosen. It took a moment for it to sink in that this was it — this was one of those Life Moments people talk about, and I needed to sit up straight and pay attention and think of something memorable to say and why hadn’t I penciled in my eyebrows today?

“What do you mean?” he laughed. We were sitting outside a small café just off the scenic path we were biking. It was my perfect engagement scenario: no grand gestures, no ceremony, and no audience, strange or familiar. Just him, casually dropping a ring into my hand, and me, not knowing what to say, but managing to blurt out that I “usually wear gold jewelry.”

Despite this being his first time asking someone to marry him, my new fiancé knew exactly what to do next: He took a photo of us with rolling green hills in the background and texted it to everyone in his family with the message “She said yes!”

As if there was some genuine suspense as to whether or not I would.

I, on the other hand, had no idea how to proceed as a newly engaged person. I sat on this information, unsure how to let it out into the world. I wanted…

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