How we got to know each other and how we became engaged.

We are fairly conventional people, but we tend to march to a different, if not a drum, a slightly different beat than those around us. Our dating history, how we came to know each other and even the proposal were conducted in manners that might be seen as non-traditional, but all of which made perfect sense to us.

The proposal didn’t involve flowers or a fancy dinner. To what will surely be the horror of some friends, it didn’t even involve a bowed knee. It didn’t even include The Question.

“Wait,” you may be saying. “How can you have a proposal without The Question?”

It was pretty easy for us, actually. Instead of getting down on one knee, looking lovingly into Emily’s eyes and asking querulously, “Emily, will you marry me?” I did things a little differently. I did the dishes. To be truthful, we both did the dishes. We’d had a simple meal of, I think, curry and we were cleaning up. We rinsed the dishes, loaded the dishwasher and leaned on the bar between the kitchen and living room looking into the kitchen, surveying the room before us. And that’s when it happened.

I reached into my pocket, pulled out a small maroon box and handed it to Emily, asking, “So. Do you want to make it official?”

She took the box and opened it. Her eyes were sparkling as she replied, “Sure.”

And that was that. We were engaged. Why did that special moment happen the way it did? Several reasons.

1. For one, I was tired of carrying that box in my pocket. It had sharp corners.

2. For another reason, it felt right: We were working together at a mundane, everyday task that we’d have to do together for the rest of our lives, and we were content and happy, even though she and I have very different opinions on how to stack dishes in a dishwasher. I took that as a good sign.

3. Lastly, and by far most importantly, whether or not we wanted to marry each other wasn’t a question. We had been talking about it abstractly for months, and much less abstractly for several weeks prior. We’d gone ring shopping together, talked about future living arrangements and had other such discussions. The attitude of each of these discussions was never “what if” but always “when.” We had been engaged to each other for a long while emotionally. We just needed to formalize it.

That’s why, on 11 January 2013, a little after dinner, I didn’t ask Emily to marry me. I asked if she wanted to make it official. She did.

– Michael

P.S. I did mention that Emily and I tend to do things slightly differently than might be expected, but in many things we are very traditional. The proposal itself was out of the ordinary compared to accepted custom, but I still made it a point to ask her parents for their permission and blessing beforehand. They said yes.