The Art of Proposing: The Question of a Lifetime

WHEN SUMEET MITTAL’S girlfriend didn’t accept his proposal right away, he decided to turn to literature for inspiration. Borrowing from Rhett Butler’s proposal to Scarlett O’Hara in Gone with the Wind, Mittal played a guitar and sung under his lover’s window every night for two weeks, till she finally agreed to marry him. “Sex is so easy today,” says Mittal’s new bride, Aashna. “A booty call is only an app, phone call, SMS or FB message away. Romance is what women crave for now. It’s the new ideal because it’s missing in today’s dating game. I would love to be courted in the same way Jamie wooed Aurélia in Love Actually or like how Darcy runs after Elizabeth in Pride and Prejudice. I don’t want just a ring. I want love. And I want a proposal that proves it.” Luckily, Mittal’s singing was enough to impress her.

Not every couple is as fortunate. At Dr Sanjay Saini’s stress clinic in Delhi, the 11 o’clock counselling session is reserved for a particular kind of patient—men who have been rejected because their proposals failed to impress. Aged between 25 and 40, these men now attend weekly group therapy sessions with Dr Saini to ‘feel better about themselves’.

Adarsh Kapoor, 28, is one of the unlucky ones. A regular at the clinic, Kapoor thought he would try being ‘old-school romantic’. He took his ex out on a date to a fancy restaurant, bought her a bouquet of red roses and over a candlelit meal, got down on one knee to propose. He was rejected right there. Desperate, Kapoor paid internet marketing service Social King Rs 15,000 to make his proposal a social media sensation. But it was too late. By the time his declaration of love had clocked 200 likes, she’d already started dating someone new; someone, as she later informed him through WhatsApp, who ‘appreciated her enough to do more than just bend one joint of his body’.

Karan Singh, 33, is another regular, having succumbed to depression and anxiety three months ago. He is one of the few men in the group who is yet to propose. Singh has spent Rs 20,000 on a proposal planner, agreed to weld his wisdom tooth into a diamond ring, made an Instagram collage and YouTube video to profess his love and there are 393 love letters in his closet just waiting to be sent out, one for every day he’s known and loved his girlfriend. “I feel it’s not good enough. I keep stressing that she will say no. Her best friend’s husband named a part of the moon after her, arranged to have the ring put inside a bottle of her favourite wine and flew her sister in from New Zealand for the occasion. The video recording of this received 900 likes on Facebook. How can I compete with that? I don’t even have that many friends on my account,” says Singh. At the clinic, he has met several men who have spent big bucks to buy Facebook ‘likes’ for their proposal. He is now considering doing the same. “It costs around Rs 10,000 for 100-150 likes. But I have heard it helps. Girls love social endorsement. And if a proposal goes viral online, I’m sure she won’t reject me.”

“Getting dumped after asking someone to marry you is particularly painful and humiliating,” explains Dr Saini. “By this time, a level of trust, dependence and need has usually been established. When this is taken away, it can do some deep damage to a person’s ego. Additionally, there’s the financial cost of making a proposal as well that many have to live with. Some men even take personal loans in order to finance proposals. Imagine the pain of having to repay a loan for someone who rejected your love.” It’s an urban myth to assume men don’t get depressed, he adds. “Studies show that at least 3-4 per cent of men are depressed in any given community and that number is probably higher because so many are reluctant to admit their true feelings. Intense social expectations, especially from the women they care about, can lead to severe stress and extremely low self-worth. I don’t think it’s about women wanting more. Rather, it’s about men not being able to fully understand what exactly the modern-day woman wants.”

The 11 o’clock session is about to begin. Today, the 15 patients who have gathered here will spend the next hour discussing how ‘one break-up won’t ruin their masculinity’. Fifteen might be a low number, but three years ago when Dr Saini started his practice, he could hardly get one man to attend. “The difficulty with men who suffer from depression is that it’s a social taboo for them to seek help. I started this group because I realised how many of my own friends needed counselling after a relationship went wrong. No one wanted to admit that they couldn’t handle a break- up on their own. Gradually, through word of mouth, I’ve been able to convince a few men that there is no shame in seeking help during a traumatic phase in their life.” There is still one man who Dr Saini is desperate to convince to take up therapy— his 34-year-old nephew. “He’s had six break-ups but the last one really tore him apart. She dumped him because he didn’t change his Facebook status to ‘engaged’. He isn’t the same person anymore. I rarely see him smile. If I try to help him, he gets abusive and agitated. I’m trying to get him to attend just one group session. Maybe once he sees how other young men are also going through the same experience, he won’t feel as conscious.”

ATTENDING THERAPY MIGHT not be every man’s cup of tea but romance bootcamp does seem to make the cut. The Real Man Bootcamp (RMB) in Mumbai— that helps men approach ‘real women in the real world’—has been going strong for ten years. Shiva, RMB’s founder and love coach, says he now receives clients from across the country, including some from small towns such as Chandigarh, Mysore and Lucknow. “Nobody wants to hear ‘Will you marry me’ anymore. Not when there are people proposing on international magazine covers, organising flash mobs, putting a question mark on skyscrapers or coming up with a different way to propose every day for 365 days. The proposal is more important than the actual wedding” he says.

The importance of a wedding proposal was observed in a recent survey of 2,144 women by VoucherCloud, with respondents citing an unromantic proposal and poor ring choice as their top reasons for rejecting a man. Another survey of 1,000 women by Bookatable.com noted that 33 per cent would be left disappointed if their partner simply got down on one knee instead of planning something much more elaborate. A further 20 per cent admitted that they wanted a proposal they would be able to brag about on social media. In fact, the pressure to propose can be so exhausting that most men would actually prefer for women to pop the question. Shaadi.com conducted a survey on the subject and the results showed that out of the 6,500 Indian men interviewed, over 70 per cent wanted women to propose. As many as 21.4 per cent also said they would be happy for it to be done over the phone, WhatsApp or Facebook.

“With social media, conditions are becoming tougher for relationships to take a natural course. Proposals are no longer private but public affairs. Comparisons have become easier as well, leading to couples expecting much more from one another. It is this expectation that turns into disappointment that is so strong that it can completely wreck the relationship,” says Dr Manoj Sharma, a psychiatrist at NIMHANS, Bengaluru. He is currently working on a study to gauge how social media affects relationships in India, especially with regard to commitment and infidelity. “Couples need to be on the same page regarding how important digital approval is in their relationship.”

For Sebastian, an engagement ring consultant and party planner in Delhi, it took an extremely rough break-up to help him realise why men should never take a proposal for granted. “I was dumped by someone I had dated for ten years. I made the mistake of proposing over SMS. I honestly didn’t think it mattered after being together for so long. I was wrong. If ten years of loving someone can be overshadowed by one single question, it really shows how much investment needs to go into a proposal,” he says. Sebastian now receives clients who are happy to spend Rs 2-5 lakh on a single proposal and ring. He is currently working with a client who wants to present a vial of his blood along with the ring to his would-be, just like Angelina Jolie did. “Celebrities set the ideal today. It’s rather unbelievable how many men want to propose with a copy of Kim Kardashian or Kate Middleton’s engagement ring. It’s like hitting in the dark sometimes, you never know what may or may not impress a girl. Sometimes they themselves do not know,” he adds, referring to one client whose girlfriend made him change the engagement ring 12 times before she was finally satisfied. “To be fair, she did contribute to 50 per cent of the cost. But she was so confused about what she wanted. Her choices were nearly always coloured by what would impress her online friends. It was interesting to see how her boyfriend obeyed her every whim and fancy. Men are finally catching up on the proposal game.”

Women too are catching up to the proposal game. At Loopy Cupid, a luxury wedding and proposal planning service, only ‘unique’ proposals are entertained and the client must be a woman. “Drama and presentation come naturally to women. I don’t believe in sexism when it comes to proposals. If two people are in love, either can propose because both are equals in a relationship. However, my service is only for women because I think there is a dearth of planners who take women seriously. When I wanted to propose, I found only condescension at planning services instead of ideas. I decided to do something on my own for women who are really serious about taking things into their own hands,” says founder Meena R.

When clients get in touch, Meena’s first task is to draw up a presentation of famous proposals that they can possibly draw inspiration from. Singer-songwriter Seal’s proposal to Heidi Klum inside an igloo on top of a 14,000 feet glacier remains a favourite. “Inside the igloo, he had placed rose petals, candles, champagne and a ring. Something like that is bound to impress. I am still waiting for a client who will consider doing the same,” says Meena. She has had clients who have attempted to copy other celeb-proposals, such as American actor Jerry O’Connell’s proposal to actress Rebecca Romijn at his childhood home, Olympic figure skater Todd Kapostasy’s proposal to fellow figure skater Tara Lipinski through a painting of him holding out an engagement ring, and author Durjoy Dutta’s Twitter proposal. “I’ve always admired how Kanye West proposed to Kim Kardashian. He rented out an entire sports stadium in San Francisco and paid the Chicago Symphony to play her favourite song by Lana Del Ray while he held out the ring on one knee. That kind of proposal costs money. But I think it works. I think something glamorous, expensive and theatrical always works because it shows how much effort has gone into pulling it all off.”

Devya Chopra, 28, was Meena’s latest client. A marketing executive based in Gurgaon, Chopra didn’t think twice before deciding to propose to her boyfriend of six years. “We’d been together since we attended college in Pune. After so many years, it doesn’t really matter who makes the first move. It certainly didn’t matter to me if I asked or he asked. I did, however, want it to be something grand,” says Chopra, who hired Meena to wrap the ring inside 20 gift boxes. Each box had a handwritten love letter inside. “I wrote each letter over the course of one year; every time we were apart, which was a total of 20. He loved the proposal and we are now getting married at the end of the year.”

According to Candice Pereira, co- founder and creative head of Marry Me Weddings, a Mumbai-based wedding and proposal planning service, women are far more willing to propose today. “Proposals have to be romantic. And women do it best. They know how to translate love into an event. Nothing says ‘I love you’ better than the perfect proposal.”

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