Public marriage proposals are such emotional events, even passersby stop what they are doing to applaud the presumably happy couple.
But not all proposals are the romantic milestone everyone expects them to be, especially when "yes" is not the answer.
When a woman ultimately says, "no," the courage it takes for her to turn down a proposal is better in the long run for both people involved.
Wondering about how life resumed for women post-proposal, Redditor Interesting-Cod478 asked:
"Women who got proposed to but rejected it, why and how did your life change afterwards?"
The Ring
"I was dating a guy for two or three weeks (yes, weeks) and he proposed to me. With a ring he had bought for another woman. Which he told me as he was proposing. I said no and kind of slowly ghosted him because YIKES."
Wasn't A Joke
"I guy a went on one date proposed to me because he wanted a green card. I thought he was joking at first. He wasn't. I said no and then goodbye forever"
– azick545
"It was honestly hilarious. I was like at least put in some more effort, string me along, etc. But at least he made his feelings apparent quickly and I didn't have to worry anymore."
– azick545
"I was proposed to in a pretty nonchalant manner by a fellow student at my local community college. I had just turned 21 and he was in his mid 40's. The class was scuba diving."
"He has some really good reasons for me to marry him. He was completely deaf, so his proposal was witnessed by an interpreter and most of the class. He spoke well but was a little hard to understand at times so he signed and spoke the whole thing while the interpreter stood by to make sure I understood what he was saying and had to repeat a couple things that I didn't catch."
If It Weren't For The Age Gap
"The class was pretty laid back so we were all mostly comfortable with each other. Hanging out chatting after class one day and he gets my attention and says, very matter of fact 'we should get married, here's why' and proceeds to list several reasons why. Some of his reasons were- I could drive his Jeep any time I wanted. It was a brand new Rubicon and I had an older grand cherokee so obviously I love jeeps."
"I could play music as loud as I wanted any time of day, wouldn't bother him. We would never fight because he couldn't hear me anyway. He had a job, collected disability pay, and had his own home so I would never have to work. I always looked so interested in what he had to say. That one was him picking on me because he knew I didn't know sign language."
"He said it would be perfect. I agreed with him that it did sound pretty great, except for the fact that he was the same age as my dad and that was weird."
"I kindly declined his proposal and he joked about me crushing his spirits and how I was the only girl for him. He pretty much dropped it but he would ask me occasionally throughout the rest of the class 'change your mind yet?' Then we'd have a good laugh."
"He was the nicest guy, I think just a little lonely. Always kind hearted and loved helping everyone out. He loved that he was on an even playing field while scuba diving, no one can hear under water. He was fun to be around. Too bad he was twice my age."
"Jerry, if you're out there and remember this interaction, I dated a few guys that were sh*t compared to how you'd treat a lady and I thought about your proposal often. I'm incredibly happy with the boy that I hope to marry someday and I genuinely hope you've found someone that makes you happy and treats you well."
– S-Crumby
The Senior Player
"92 yr old man at a nursing home used to ask me and every other woman to Marry him daily. Had this whole sweet old man line 'your the most beautiful woman I've ever seen' , I would reply 'I just heard you say the same thing to that nurse,' 'but you're prettier.' Made me smile everytime. He had forgotten he was already married."
White Water Rafting Followed By A Proposal
"A friend of mine in another city, had been trying to set me up with her male roommate. He, whom I had never met, had won tickets for white water rafting in BC... about 6 hours away for me, and 3 for him... we decided to do a weekend trip to meet (my friend insisted that he was cool... otherwise I never would have gone without knowing him for a while.
Anyways... I was *very* clear that we wouldn't be having sex, since we had just met, and he agreed, pointing out that he was strict Roman Catholic and would not have sex until married."
"First night we fooled around a bit, but nothing much.... went white water rafting the next day, had dinner and back to the room."
"He very excitedly tells me that he met a priest who was also staying at the hotel, and PROPOSES!!!! With complete seriousness!!"
"WTF!! Everything after that went rather poorly. He didn't understand why I wouldn't see him again after dropping him off at home."
"Did not change my life, other than have a good story...."
Sweet Little Suitors
"I worked as a pre-k teaching assistant for a year. The head teacher was married so they called her Mrs. while I was not so they called me Ms. Eventually some of the kids noticed this difference and started asking why head teacher was Mrs. and I wasn't. We explained that she was married and I didn't have a husband. Upon hearing that one little boy loudly stated 'I will marry you! I want to be your husband!' I got 3 other proposals from 3 different 4 year olds that day. Definitely not a serious story, but one that always makes me smile :)"
The Deadbeat
"Okay, my first boyfriend. Started dating in high school, my end of 9th grade year, he was a senior. So he went off to college, lived 2 hours away. Cool, everything was cool. My junior year, he moves back to our hometown. Didn't talked about, I asked him about college. He just said he didn't want to go anymore, then I realize this guy can't commit to a job, like in high school I understood the slack. I ended things with him that summer before I went for my senior year."
"Years pass, I moved to a different city 3 hours away from our hometown. We get in contact again because I was getting over a bad break up. After 2ish years we start dating again. I think he finally has good things going for him, like his future. Well, after dating for like 3 months he moved in with me, I didn't want this, yet his mother was being kicked out of the house they were renting. ( due to non_payment )
About 6 months into him living with me, he's jobless, demanding I pay his car payments, won't clean up anything, and just plays games all day. He asked me to marry him, I said yeah cause people were watching but I promise you, and soon as we get back to my apartment, I give him $40, tell him to go back to his mom's so she could take care of him for the rest of her life!!"
Atypical Proposal
"Not a typical proposal but I had a coworker, who I never dated or even knew of any attraction to me, ask me to marry him. He said he was up for a job where he'd be making over 100k in less than 5 years. This was back in the late 90s so it was good money for our age back then. He said he'd buy me a house and the car I was in love with at the time (BMW Z3) plus I wouldn't have to work. I said no thanks and then luckily got another job shortly afterwards that set me on my current career path which I wouldn't change for anything."
The Weapons Expert
"There was a guy I dated for awhile. He was National Guard and had previously served 4 years in the Army as a weapons expert. He had a concealer's permit and always had his gun on him or in his car. He also liked to collect guns."
"He proposed and I declined."
"6 months later I come to find out he went to a party and his gun was discharged in his car. His sister told me it was an accident when he pushed the gun off the seat onto the floor. But I think something is off about the story."
A Gut Feeling
"We were together two years when he asked. I think we could have been happy and great in a lot of ways but, fundamentally, I never would have been happy."
"He was a very nice guy but had a very overbearing mother that he let run his life. He had no idea who he was or what he wanted. He just let his mother choose his life for him, from his career to his underwear."
"I think he proposed as a last ditch effort to keep me because he knew deep down I was on my way out."
"I was sad about it until I spoke with a good friend of mine who has a sister that married a mama’s boy. She recounted to me how absolutely difficult her marriage was (currently going through a divorce). It was then I realized I dodged a massive bullet."
"Couldn’t be happier now. Last I heard, he’s still a gopher with a law degree and his parents promoted his sister over him. I’m now with a guy that is his own person and makes his own decisions. Very grateful."
Won't Take "No" For An Answer
"We were eighteen, only together for about two months. We were sitting there and they said, 'How would you feel if I got you a ring?'”
"And I thought it best to be honest so I said, 'I think it’s a little too soon for that, but maybe next year that could be nice.'”
"Well, big mistake. They pulled out a damn ring."
“Oh. I all ready got it. I guess I’ll just keep it to myself then if you don’t want it.”
"The next few weeks were a huge string of, 'If you don’t love me and want my ring I’m going to drive my car off a bridge.'”
"At first, I didn’t see it because he resented how involved she was in his life. It slowly dawned on me that while he may resent it, he absolutely could not make any kind of decision on his own. From whether he wanted to attend church or what kind of higher degree he wanted, he left it to his mother."
"When he quit a great job at a prestigious law firm that he liked, to work for his parents as a gopher for 20k a year, it basically ended the relationship right then."
Identifying Dealbreakers
"I was caught off guard and said yes to avoid making a scene, but ended it shortly after that. We had been together for a couple of years. I wasn't happy and hadn't been for a while. Once I took the time to think it over I realized that his idea of getting married was to capture our life together in a bottle and seal it up so that nothing could ever change."
"The fact that our relationship was the way that it was, but he wanted to married me, made me think that I would be signing up for us to never work on our problems as a couple, and that I had nothing but question marks about how we would navigate things as we both aged. We hadn't discussed marriage so he never should have sprung a proposal on me. I wish I had handled it differently, but it wasn't fair for him to do that."
"After we broke up and I got him out of my house I instantly felt happier on a day-to-day basis because of how much the relationship had been weighing me down, but it wasn't too long after that that my mental health actually really tanked. I spent multiple years suppressing my needs, feelings and desires and blurring my boundaries, so once I had space to actually see and honor those things, it was uncomfortable for me."
"I'm still in therapy working on all of that. I'm in another relationship now, my first one since that breakup, and while every relationship is difficult, I've come into this one with a lot better understanding of what I'm NOT interested in having and what some of my dealbreakers are. I also feel an urge to move a lot more slowly in this relationship than what I felt previously, probably because I've learned to value boundaries so much more."
For these folks, I do was I don't.
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Kids say the cutest things, don't they?
Their unfiltered observations about life's many mysteries can be downright hilarious and serve as reminders of their pure innocence.
But it's less forgivable when adults make naive comments because, well, shouldn't they know better?
That's not always the case, however.
Curious to hear ridiculous examples of the things grown people say, Redditor Automatic_Hedgehog71 asked:
"What is the silliest statement you have ever heard someone make?"
Some people should really think twice before opening their mouth.
Work Of Art
"'How did they get the paint all the way up the sides?' -Middle-aged woman touring the Meteor Crater in AZ."
“'That’s not paint, those are the actual colors of the rock' -Her husband, giving her a long stare and walking away."
– ghostbungalow
For Trial And Error
"I had a boss say 'oh you don’t want kids, you should just have one to try it out.'"
"Really, and what happens if I find out that I truly don’t want kids? Can we just put it back where it came from?"
– tyintegra
Confused Soldier
"I worked at a place that gave a military discount."
"Family (mom, dad, adult son, adult daughter) walked in. Dad was reading the prices and pointed out to the son that he could get a discount!"
"This kid takes the sign, reads it, and says, as God is my witness:"
"I'm not in the military. I'm in the Army."
– JustMeerkats
To Live Or Let Die
"Someone once told me that paramedics/nurses/doctors are not allowed to do CPR on someone they know because it’s 'a conflict of interest.'”
– corviknight2259
It's a wonder how some people manage to live in the real world.
Know Your Audience When Using Big Words
"Sat down to eat with a friend. I said 'I'm famished' she looked at me, laughed and LOUDLY she said to me 'I swear you make up words sometimes.'"
– NotBadSinger514
"Oh man people say this to me all the time! Why did I read books and learn so many words, when no one understands them, and I really didn't think they were so pretentious, words like Famished."
– Person_Letter_629
Not Icarus
"A friend of mine said she got more tanned when riding her bike than she did when walking because on her bike, she was 'closer to the sun.'"
– Five_Star_Amenities
"This just reminded me of a time I was out on a boat with a big group of people and one of them said 'I’m so glad it’s windy, I won’t get sunburned' they thought the wind would push the light away from their skin. I was the only one to say it definitely doesn’t work like that and I could tell they thought I was wrong."
– Thbbbt_Thbbbt
The Symptoms Indicate Otherwise
"Earlier today I offered a cough drop upon my flight’s landing to the lady wet coughing right behind me the whole flight."
'Oh, no thanks, I’m not sick. I just went to Oregon and have felt awful the whole time since.'
"Okay…so…sick"
– ACaparzo
Completely Lost
"A friend once said she couldn't take Southwest Airlines because she was flying east to Florida."
– ProudCatLadyxo
"How do they get the planes back? Do they repaint them as Northeast? Or do they just push them?"
– ch4m3le0n
"They just keep flying south until they come back around."
– frymeyourpoop
A Silly Sports Spectator Said
"I was at a baseball game in Cincinnati and the teenage girl behind turned to her friend and said 'this is so cool, it's almost like we're watching it live.' I think about that a lot."
"EDIT: based on the look of the girls and their other conversations this was no joke, there was no laughing either. Don't remember the exact year but flip phones were the most common cell phone and we had seats in the outfield so she didn't appear to be watching the game thru her phone. This also wasn't the first time that day where I heard them say something and I stopped what I was doing and stared straight into space, just the most memorable. They seemed like nice enough girls, no malicious or rude conversations, it just appeared like they lacked some basic intelligence for some relatively simple concepts."
– Michael_With_An_M
You can't be difficult and clueless at the same time, can you?
Observe exhibits A, B, & C.
Unpalatable Texture
"A woman tried to send back a dish. She didn’t understand the components of it and tried to tell me that she couldn’t eat it because she was allergic to crunchy. Like yeah the texture. Not the ingredient that we had made crunchy."
– BuckleupBirds
"LMAO. Makes me feel better about the guy who asked a friend (server) for ‘Mushroom risotto, but without the rice’."
– Mavises
I'll Have The Pie And Ice Cream With A Side Of Ice Cream
"Had an older family member that back in the day went to a diner and ordered the 'pie a la mode' from the menu. He then proceeded to ask the waitress if they could put a little ice cream on top of that. : )"
– Fluffing_Satan
My husband and I were walking around a gift shop in Solvang, CA, and marveling at some of the various tchotchkes.
One of them was a MOVA globe.
MOVA globes are usually about the size of a softball held up by three small supports, and they rotate without the use of electrical wires or batteries.
Instead, they're powered by the combination of solar cells and torque from the earth's magnetic field. We didn't know this at the time, however.
When a worker nearby saw us being mesmerized by the shelf of spinning globes, he commented, "Cool, right?"
And I replied, "Yeah, how does it work?"
The dude gave a sly smile and said:
"It's an optical delusion."
Or illusion...
We all have various brands and businesses we tend to prefer over others.
Sometimes, we might not patronize these businesses because they have a superior product, but because they might seem more trustworthy than their competitors.
Indeed, some people have had such terrible experiences with companies, even some esteemed corporations, that they went running from them straight into the arms of one of their rivals.
Vowing that they would never, ever spend money on this company ever again.
Redditor SignificantClick8284 was eager to hear which companies people have zero trust in, leading them to ask:
"What company will you never trust again?"
Their Poor Communication Is Kind Of Ironic...
"Comcast."
"Their agents will lie to your face and act like you're in the wrong when called out."- bigdammit
customer service call center GIF
Giphy
Not A Place To Spend Or Save Your Money...
"Ashley Furniture."
"Joke of a company."
"Bank of America - also scum."- KrankOverman
Better Question, What Question Will You EVER Trust Again...
"Unfurls paper scroll that stretches to the floor and rolls out the door."
"Ahem."- djb2589
"I see no reason to trust any company."- lycos94
When The Conformation Email Is Moot...
"Booking.com."
"I 'booked' through them just to find out that the hotel had no record of my reservation."
"Then I spent an hour in the lobby trying to get them on the phone, just to find out the price wouldn’t be honored and have them try to sell me another nearby hotel room."
"Nightmare."- DuncanAerilious
"Oh, oh The Well's Fargo Wagon Is A Comin'..."
"Wells Fargo."- clubberlang2005
"Yup."
"I was one of the WF customers who suddenly had 3 mystery WF accounts under my name."
"This was prior to the court case so I went in to my branch to ask WTF."
"The manager said the guy who set up those accounts was the same guy that setup my original 2 accounts - a checking and savings account."
"That a-hole tried to make it sound like he was doing me a favor by setting up all these accounts."
"Making it worse he says I need to login to my account in order for him to remove the other 3 accounts."
"He hands me that password box, I enter my password and he says 'that's an easy one to remember'."
"Is that your favorite band?'"
"After he said that I asked for the branch manager and told him what just happened and that I was closing all of my accounts'."- thescreamingstone
kate mckinnon snl GIF by Saturday Night Live
Giphy
"That's All Folks!"
"ACME."
"Every f8cking thing."
"From anvils to bat suits to zoot suits always FAIL."- alien_survivor
Not Equipped For The Digital Age
"HP."
"Thier printers (large and small format) are all complete trash that require constant upkeep."- Bluegrass_Barbarian
Pictures And Fine Print Can Be Misleading...
"Airbnb."- pkovach64
"My wife and I were drinking and got pretty drunk at an Airbnb and without letting us know the hosts sent a bunch of people to the property to refill the propane and other stuff."
"They came into the house while we were drunk and half-naked and were catcalling my wife in front of me."
"This was a pretty big and well-known group operating in Tennesee."
"From what we found out this is extremely common."- Huge-Plantain-8418
Giveaway GIF by AppSumo
Giphy
Analog Has Its Benefits...
"EA."- bullet312
"I lost all my sims sh*t because I hadn't logged in for more than 6 months."
"EA told me to reset my password so that they could restore my account."
"They kept saying the link was in my email, but it never came."
"Kept calling to try to get the issue fixed over a few weeks, then I realized they were just d*cking me around."
"F*ck EA."- MotherOfDogs1872
And To Think They're Supposed To Help You...
"Any insurance company."
"Especially health and homeowners."- carolizzy81
FalsE Advertising
"Nabisco."
"They took double stuffed Oreos, reduced the amount of cream to the same as the regular Oreos, and are still selling them as double stuffed, and are charging double stuffed prices!"
"The betrayal is unforgivable."- It_Wasnt_Me79
oreo GIF
Giphy
As If Taxes Aren't Annoying Enough...
"Jackson Hewitt!"
"Had our taxes done a while back, and the tax preparer asked if we wanted the $200 cash advance."
"We did not."
"She then proceeded to change our information and use hers to get the temporary card with the advance."
'She then used an ATM to withdraw cash."
"She was arrested, but getting a refund was like pulling teeth from a hen."
'They didn't believe that it happened even though we had the paperwork with the tax preparer's information on it."
"It was a frigging nightmare!"
"Oh, I almost forgot she added me to the return and said I was the sister instead of the mom, so we ended up owing $1500 on top of the bullsh*t from the tax preparer."
"I do our taxes now."- RoguePhoenix259
People like to know when they're spending money that it's going somewhere they can trust.
Especially if their money is going somewhere that is supposed to keep their money safe, to begin with...