Really?
I was surfing the net last week, looking for relationship advice (yes, I know, lame… but sometimes when I feel bad reading that kind of stuff helps me with the introspection part and makes me feel a little better, go figure). One of the search results in Google caught my eye; the title was so ludicrous I just had to check it out.
How to Actually Get Your Boyfriend to Propose to You
Steps
1. Don’t mention marriage. Don’t mention weddings. Don’t mention babies. Even if you’re one of those people who is crazy about all that stuff, avoid bringing up the subject if possible.
2. If a wedding comes on TV, switch channels/yawn/talk over the top about something completely irrelevant. If it’s a film (eg. Four Weddings and a Funeral), just say something like “Andie MacDowell’s pretty ugly, don’t you think?” Whatever. Just don’t talk about centrepieces or how sad/sweet it all is.
3. If you go to a wedding together don’t comment on how beautiful it all is. As far as he’s concerned you hate it. “The food’s crap, the venue’s awkward for everyone & the whole thing is sooo pointless & tedious. God, you won’t ever make me do this, will you?!” You say to your boyfriend, before leaving & preferably having some mindblowing sex & leaving before he wakes up.
4. If some friends get engaged & they tell you before him, wait for them to tell him. Don’t dignify the engagement & make it seem like a big deal to you (even if it is) by going to the effort of telling him about it before they have the chance. When he finds out he’ll probably mention it to you, you can be like “Oh yeah, they already told me. God, they’re great together now, but how will they cope? I feel so sorry for people being stuck with someone for the rest of their lives…” Then change the subject before he can reply.
5. As above make him think you feel sorry for married couples. Let him over hear a conversation or you on the phone to a friend “When I saw John & Lisa today they looked miserable. Miserable & bored. I guess the honeymoon period’s worn off…” & even louder “Seriously, who wants to sleep with one person for the rest of your life? Sheesh.”
6. If he wants you to meet his parents, he asks you to meet his parents. If he wants to meet your parents, he suggests he meets your parents. You don’t arrange these things. The most you can do is pick a weekend you know he’s not busy & say “My parent’s wanted us over this weekend but I told them you were busy. I thought I’d save you the hassle.” Before he can ask change the subject/leave the room. Leave the thought lingering in his mind. He needs to know it’s something he has to work for.
7. If you get invited somewhere his friends/family aren’t going, don’t invite him. Don’t even mention it. Mention it at the last possible moment you can, if you have to. Even better mention it after it’s happened. If he asks why you didn’t tell/invite him you say “Well, I didn’t think you’d be interested…”
8. Don’t go on holiday with him, unless he invites you & organizes it all. If you want to go on holiday, invite your friends, not him. Even if you have a really crappy time crying in your hotel room & saying how much you love him & miss him- he won’t find out. You won’t let him. He will think you’ve had a great time without him & you tell him not to worry – you won’t ‘bore him with details’.
9. Make plans that don’t involve him. Limit the time you spend with him. If you’re bored at home & he invites you over, say your ‘busy’ or ’sick’. You can’t. He can be bored & miss you instead. The times you do go over his it’s because you’re ‘not working’ or ‘just about made it over’. Have as much fun & sex as possible. He’ll miss you more when your not around.
10. Don’t live with him. If you do, move out. NOW. Use any excuse you have to. Your mother’s sick, you need space, you need to be closer to work. Doesn’t matter. Do it.
11. Don’t have sex at yours. Have sex at his. Good sex. Fulfill his fantasies, don’t squirm when he suggests you watch porn together & don’t start rambling on about how much you love him afterwards. Just sigh sexily (sighing is different to groaning I might add) & curl up asleep next to him.
12. Try to leave as early as possible in the mornings. Make excuses. If you do stay a little longer, don’t hassle him. Make him breakfast, affectionately kiss him but don’t talk to him unless he talks to you.
13. Don’t leave your stuff at his. If you’re going to leave anything, I’d recommend ‘accidentally’ leaving a soft scarf or jumper on the bed or sofa. You should make sure it smells of that perfume you always wear too. Something delicate but sexy. Think something like Tommy Hilfiger Dreaming, not Dior Poison. Get it?
14. Don’t ever move things around at his place or complain about how he lives/behaves. No-one likes a nagger.
15. This step is vital. After you’ve been living apart for a while & you’re sure he’s hooked on you, tell him you need to stay at his for a week: Your boiler’s broken, your apartment’s being painted, your long lost cousin needs somewhere to stay etc. You DON’T bring all your stuff. You bring the bare essentials. You keep his bathroom clean & uncluttered. Same for his kitchen. You do this without mentioning it. Then you treat him like a God. You kiss him, cuddle him, go down on him & have great sex all the time. You don’t nag him. You don’t ask him where he’s going at night, what time he’ll be in, whatever. You make him snacks & tasty food & completely fill up his refrigerator. You DON’T try to give him pea flavoured lentil mush & pumpkin seeds. You make & buy MAN FOOD; Pizza, Steak, Bacon & family size packs of Doritos & Snickers. Whatever he likes, you eat with no complaint, no matter what diet your on. You watch whatever he likes on TV; Football, Golf, Top-gear, The Sopranos… & you don’t complain when you miss an episode of Friends or Desperate Housewives. EVER. You still go out all the time, even if this involves driving around the block 50 times pretending you’re at your friend’s. You don’t have your girlfriends over & you have them ring your mobile/cell – NOT his house-phone. Encourage him to go out while you stay home & have a bath. You might suggest he have his guy friends over to watch football, while you go out shopping, does he want anything from the store?… Get the idea? Then before the week is even up you leave. You tell him everything is sorted & you’re going home. Leave while he’s out at work/with his friends too. Turn off the heating, turn off the lights, empty the refrigerator & leave a note saying you had fun & you’ll see him next week.
16. Distance yourself a little over the following month, but be super sexy & glamourous when you do meet up. You could even drop into conversation how you’re surprised one of your married girlfriends said no to her husband’s suggestion of having a threesome or subscribing to a porn channel. I give him a week or two after that & if he still isn’t down on one knee proposing then he’s obviously hopeless. Move on. It’ll work on someone.
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What’s there to say? This is so completely opposite to anything I believe in, I don’t even know where to begin. Imagine the poor little innocent girl (because I think you have to be a poor little innocent girl to believe any of this crap) finally getting her guy, if this even “works”. What then? Once she’s got him where she wants and they are maried, she can finally be herself, right? I bet that’d be a happy mariage!
Actually, it’s probably a joke. I hope it is. It was on wikiHow and it looks like the articles can be edited by anyone. It ends with some tips and warnings:
Tips
- Don’t be clingy. Don’t be all lovey-dovey either.
- Don’t ask him how you look. Self obsessiveness is unattractive.
- If he compliments you, don’t agree or put yourself down. Just call him cheeky or ask jokingly what he’s after.
- Don’t nag. Don’t bitch. Be nice. Who want’s to marry someone that isn’t nice?
- Don’t dress up loads for him, but don’t turn up anywhere with greasy hair & hairy armpits.
- Don’t use his razors, hair gel, cosmetics etc. You can do annoying things like that after you’re married.
- Have fun & have a sense of humour. No-one wants to marry a square.
Warnings
- It’s advisable not to try this with someone you’ve been seeing for less than 6 months.
- Don’t expect him to succumb right away. Be patient but know where to draw the line.
- Don’t let him take you for granted & don’t be a doormat. If this seems to be happening break things right off.
- Don’t settle down with this guy if you think there’s any chance he could be dishonest or unfaithful.
- Be sure you want to marry him.
- This might backfire and he might leave.
The last warning seems particularly useful.
Category: Ramblings, Relationship | 
11 Comments »
January 19th, 2010 at 6:52 am
As I read the list it seemed to me to have been written tongue-in-cheek by some guy who got sick of hearing talk of marriage. Not particularly good advice, but kind of funny.
January 19th, 2010 at 7:17 am
Yeah, kinda funny if taken as a joke. And perhaps it is a joke. The last warning seems to suggest as much…
I guess it’s not really how my world works, whether it’s serious advice or not. I mean, I am not the kind of girl who would have made a guy write such an article because I’m constantly talking of marriage.
January 19th, 2010 at 2:22 pm
This should be more appropriately titled “How to lose your man in less than a month”.
Good lord…. LOL
January 20th, 2010 at 12:32 am
This just goes to show you that you can’t always believe what you read…What you can count on, however, is good honest advice and information from you and your posts, Elle.
I’m with you, BobF and Vixen…I think it is a joke.
January 20th, 2010 at 1:57 pm
I’m baffled by why anybody thinks that anything in this list would drive off a man, as opposed to making him crazy about you. I’m hard pressed to think of a real-life man who’d be put off by this, unless it was one who really liked weddings, family stuff, and wanted to be married… in which case you wouldn’t be looking at this list!
Of course, doing a complete 180 of personality later would NOT be a good idea. But I’m amazed to see the negative comments here by women… if you think this is a joke or wrong, you’re VERY mistaken about how men’s minds and HEARTS work.
You know how we know when we really love you? It’s not when you’re right there… all the time.
It’s when we miss you and don’t want to spend another day without you… when we can’t even bear to *think* what it would be like to not still have you in our lives.
Whoever wrote this list actually understands men, in other words.
For another example: we also like *everything* better when it’s OUR idea… so having to talk YOU into marrying us rather than the other way around is superb advice.
We want to feel like your *hero*, not someone you talked into something.
January 20th, 2010 at 7:24 pm
Hello Julian,
I appreciate your input, however I don’t think the issue here is whether these tips would drive off a guy or not. If this is how you like your girlfriend to act, that’s perfectly fine, as long as you don’t think that girlfriend would be me
I’m sure though that not all guys want that kind of girl; we’re all different, after all. So here lies one of the faults with this “how to”; how can it even suggest that this would work with every guy?
But the real issue for me is that a girl would have to be something she’s not to get a guy to propose to her, according to this helpful text. If a girl isn’t already like the text suggests, then what? The advice here is basically to mold yourself to this man’s manly needs so he’ll be crazy about you? What about the girl’s needs? I say it’s bullshit. If I have to pretend to be something I’m not, if I have to forget about myself, to be with a guy, well I don’t want to be with him. I want to be with a guy who loves me for who I am.
I just want to do what feels natural and good to me. What if I told you, in order for a girl to love you, you have to give her compliments every day, buy her flowers or chocolates once a week, ask to meet her family, paint her toenails once in a while and make sure you always smell nice? You’d probably resent being told how you should act to be loved. I know I do.
The other thing totally wrong with this advice is that it seems to mean the one and all important thing is getting married. After that, you’re all set and you can go back to being yourself. Talk about a bad surprise for Mr. Man! What makes anyone think that once you’re married, you’ve got the guy where you want him? Is a relationship really different before and after getting married? It won’t need work or efforts anymore? On BOTH persons’ parts?
Getting married is not everything. It does not mean you’ll be happy in life or that your relationship will work. Why should it be the ultimate goal?
Marriage has never been MY ultimate goal. In fact, I don’t want to get married, ever. This is my personal opinion, of course: I realize many people do want to get married. I guess a lot of what’s said in this article bothers me because it’s just not who I am. It does not reflect my life at all. To me, it sounds all-American (stereotypically clean-cut, mainstream or conventional American middle class people, particularly teenagers and young adults; thank you, Wikipedia). It’s just not me. I want to live life to the fullest, go out every weekend, do what I want, live with my boyfriend even if we’re not married (!!!) and have lots of sex with him because I love to, not because it’ll get him to propose to me.
And for what it’s worth, I do think it’s a joke because it sounds so.. stereotypical. Like, women like chick flicks and men like sports type of thing. Right.
January 22nd, 2010 at 2:21 am
Forget sports and chick flicks, the main point of the list is simply that having a life of your own makes you attractive, and a little bit of absence makes the heart grow fonder. (Also, men value women who understand them and don’t put them down for being men.)
If you told me a girl needed the things in the list you gave me, I’d say you were wrong. Girls don’t fall in love because of those things – they’re things they like to have from someone they already love. The list given is one intended to get a man to FALL in love… and that’s different.
But even if you were right, I wouldn’t resent it. People are what they are, and it doesn’t matter if it’s fair or not. Also, if you think about it, men and women are evolved to complement each other… so it stands to reason that growing up as a true man or woman, you’re naturally going to be attractive to the opposite sex. And many of the characteristics described in the list you posted are characteristics exhibited by emotionally mature women… just as most of the characteristics in a man that make a woman fall in love, are more likely to be found in an emotionally mature man.
Ignore the superficial acts described in the list – look at what kind of person would *naturally* do those kinds of things.
Someone who’s comfortable with her and his sexuality. Someone who takes responsibility for getting their own needs met. Someone who’s not needy and clingy.
Hm. Sounds like a woman who would have a good time whether the guy was there or not. And what’s wrong with that?
Does faking all that work? No, and I said so in my comment. The advice is only interesting insofar as it shows what sort of mature personal qualities one would want to cultivate to make a secure, stable long-term relationship… especially with a man who has options or who hasn’t yet realized how wonderful you really are, on account of you having been just a little too available.
January 25th, 2010 at 2:00 am
Or if your guy is a romantic like me you don’t have to worry about any of it because he’ll do it before you expect to
January 25th, 2010 at 11:01 pm
Julian: “The main point of the list is simply that having a life of your own makes you attractive, and a little bit of absence makes the heart grow fonder. (Also, men value women who understand them and don’t put them down for being men.)” That is MUCH better said than that list. I could even almost agree. I mean, it’s probably true for some, maybe even many, but I refuse to believe that everyone’s the same.
As for your second paragraph, I’m not sure. Maybe there is a difference, but my point was just to list silly things you’d have to do, just like the “help article” does. The point was that to be told to be a certain way or act a certain way for a guy to love you just plain sucks.
I do have a problem with this though: “(…) so it stands to reason that growing up as a true man or woman, you’re naturally going to be attractive to the opposite sex.” What the hell is a true man or woman? O_o
The whole thing is just wrong because it is totally stereotypical and NOT ALL MEN ARE LIKE THAT. Nor women. I root for diversity. Take Tug, for example, who replied after you: he says he’s a romantic. Some men LIKE clingy and lovey-dovey. If you don’t, that’s perfectly fine, but let’s not assume that all are the same.
January 25th, 2010 at 11:04 pm
Tug: He’s not exactly romantic, but that’s ok, I don’t want to get married
He loves me for me, and I didn’t even have to avoid living with him or going on holiday with him. Huh.
January 28th, 2010 at 4:41 pm
The list is a list to chase a guy off?
It has to be a joke list.
#2 on weddings… I love well done wedding and receptions. I get invited to a few a year and if one is exeptional I will rave about it.