The bad start

Gentlemen, I submit that if you wish to have even a remote chance at a successful marriage with a woman, beginning it by demonstrating to all and sundry that you are the submissive party is not the optimal way to kick it off:

“I expect that more women than ever will be proposing in 2008,” says Dr Sheri Jacobson, a relationship counsellor at Harley Therapy in London. “I think that attitudes are shifting and there’s more room for women to assert themselves.” How much more room can there be?…

And besides, you may be surprised to know that a tradition dreamt up by other chicks doesn’t insist that the woman buy the ring. Suzanne Kelly proposed to her husband Eamon during what would otherwise have been a magical trip to Florence in 1992. “After he recovered, we found a jeweller and he bought me a classic diamond solitaire,” chirruped Suzanne, smugly.

That isn’t marriage, it’s a pirate with a cutlass in her mouth boarding a helpless merchant ship. However, some of the unquestionably brilliant writer’s suggestions for how the gamma male can avoid an unwanted proposal are pretty amusing:

You are not even safe taking your nephews to the local branch of Games Workshop for a few rounds of Warhammer – she will get the shop assistant nerds to let her write “Will you marry me?” underneath all their area of effect-damage templates (ask nephews). Only a modern “high-class” orgy will dampen her plans – the last thing she wants is for your (inevitable, gutless) acceptance to be celebrated by a round of applause from a bunch of naked “heedonists”, as Larry David calls them. Don’t admit that it’s an orgy either. When she brings up the fact that everyone’s getting it on, say: “Sex party? What are you talking about? These are my friends from university.”

It sends shivers down your spine, really. If women are getting so desperate for establishing legal claims on men’s finances that they’re actually willing to enter a Games Workshop of their own volition, there’s no telling what they might do. In the old days, before women realized that geeks can literally buy and sell jocks, a few strategically arranged painted little orcs and elves were sufficient to send any self-respecting girl running screaming into the night.