>>69307I didn't want my BF doing a corny public bent-knee proposal so what I did was I initiated a conversation about getting married and asked him, not in some proposal-esque way with scripted lines and down on one knee, but just in the regular tone of a question that comes up in a regular conversation. When he said 'yes' I moved things quickly as hell to prevent him from thinking he had to follow up my real proposal with a performative one in public and all of that. I was especially determined to avoid the horror of a public proposal.
It worked. He went along with everything, including handing me the engagement ring immediately after paying for it, to avoid the dreaded performative surprise proposal with photographers lurking in the bushes somewhere.
We've been married five years. The only part of it I regret was my reason for doing it. I have a lot of anxiety issues and I felt like, even though I wanted to marry my husband, being put on the spot the way moids typically do with their public photographed proposals might have left me too anxious to give him a clear and immediate yes. It might have hurt his feelings if I'd let him do it the traditional way, because my initial reaction could have been interpreted as a rejection.