That Time The Bloke DIDN’T Propose…

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Valentine’s Day has never really been a big deal for The Bloke and I. I’m not a particularly romantic person at heart and generally we spoil each other throughout the year, so aside from exchanging cards and the odd gift, February 14th is a day that is no different to any other.

Last year, however, I had been particularly looking forward to it. We’d had the usual discussion a few days before:

Me: Are we doing Valentine’s Day?
Him: Yeah, I suppose so. I’ve already got you a card and a little present.
Me: Ooh! What sort of present?
Him: It’s something small that’s for the both of us.

Now, I don’t know why, but for some reason this suddenly meant one thing:

An engagement ring.

We’d been in a relationship for six years by that point and we’d had discussions about marriage, but it wasn’t anything that he’d seemed hugely bothered about – our relationship was a consistently happy one and  we didn’t need anything to solidify it further. However, I had started to think more seriously about the idea.

The day before Valentine’s Day I was ridiculously excited, imagining all sorts of scenarios in how he would do it and the reaction I would have. That evening, I deliberately did my hair so that pictures in the morning wouldn’t be too horrific. I had all sorts of questions – had he asked my mum’s permission? Had he bought the right sized ring? What would it look like?

I was awake at 5.00am on Valentine’s Day. I had bought him a Big Bang Theory Lego set, so the minute he opened his eyes I jumped at him, shoving the present and card in his face and demanding that he open it. He was delighted.

Ok, this was a good start…

He then handed me a card and a beautiful small white bag that was the perfect size for a ring box. My heart started beating as I opened it… This was it! He got out of bed and walked round to my side of the room and I made sure that I was sitting up. I pulled the present out of the bag.

Inside was a beautiful glass frame with my favourite picture of us carefully placed inside.

“Do you like it?” he asked.

I. Was. Gutted.

“Yes, it’s beautiful! Thanks love…” I mustered a big smile and gave him a hug. He walked off and went to feed the cats.

The disappointment was immense, but I couldn’t help but smile to myself – I’d had no reason to think that he was going to propose, or even the fact that he wanted to get married, and I had created an imaginary scenario in my head from just a single statement.

The following day, I met my friend for a drink, during which she showed me her brand new engagement ring. After lots of squealing, I told her the story, which we both found hilarious…

Little did I know, he actually WAS planning to propose and did so in Scotland a few months later. It came as a complete surprise and was above and beyond anything I could have possibly imagined during my pre-Valentine’s Day mania.

I only told The Bloke about it a few months ago. He found it just as hilarious as my friend did.

And this morning, I woke up to two beautiful cards (he couldn’t decide which one to buy, so bought both) and a beautiful glass trinket from the same store that he had purchased my frame from the year before. I had a little smile to myself when I saw the frame sitting on top of my bookcase.

I’m so glad he didn’t propose on Valentine’s Day…

What about you guys? Have you been left disappointed after building an expectation up in your mind?

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83 thoughts on “That Time The Bloke DIDN’T Propose…”

  2. Brilliant, the bloke is, Suzie! 🙂 I dated a guy eons ago who (I thought) was going to give me a lovely diamond necklace I had my eye on. I talked about it, told my friends which jewelry store they could ‘spy’ it! When the day came, the box was much, much too big to be a wee necklace! Did he wrap it up to disguise my eagle eye? Nope. It was a vacuum cleaner. Suffice it to say, I swept him under the rug and I’m sure glad I did! 😉 Cher xo

    • I shouldn’t laugh Cher, but that was hilarious!

      I remember me and my dad bought my mum some Titanic prints that were signed by one of the survivors (my mum is a Titanic obsessive) for Christmas, but as a joke present her bought her a new iron – the look on her face! She was annoyed all morning until we actually her the proper present…

  3. Awww! 😂 This reminds me of the time my husband took me to Paris (on Valentine’s Day) and …. wait for it … DIDN’T propose. I was gutted. Absolutely gutted. I was waiting in anticipation at the top of the ‘freezing cold’ tower… and when he went to take a hanky out of his pocket for the fiftieth time… I was like “yeaaaaa, it’s not going to happen!”

    But hey! We’re both engaged/married now and that’s all that matters.

    Have a lovely Valentine’s Day! ❤

  4. Does it count when you give birth to your beautiful son on Valentine’s Day but the husband (ex) is the disappointment lol 😂 Love your non-engagement story and SO happy for you x

  7. What a lovely story! And so much better to have your own romantic day rather than one shared by everyone else!

    Must remember to write my engagement story up some day…that didn’t quite go as planned for hubby 💍😂

      • In short, romantic proposal planned by hubby on a beach in Crete…only it was late, and I was wearing heels, and all that sand…why do you want to walk along the beach NOW? 😂

        The plan B proposal was just as special though… apartment balcony with a 1Euro bottle of “vin du Crete” and a family size bag of Cheetos 💍💍💍

  8. Ha ha ha I’m obviously not very romantic at heart either – my first thought on reading your post was OMG, there’s actually a Big Bang Theory Lego set??? 🙂

  9. I love your love story. It’s beautiful. If he had proposed on Valentine’s Day as you anticipated, it wouldn’t have been as excited. It would just have met your expectation. But it happened when you were not expecting. I could image how excited you were. Thank you for sharing your story!

  10. That is the most wickedly awesome (and totally cringe worthy) non-engagement story ever! I give you major kudos for not completely losing it on him – I don’t know that I could’ve mustered a brave face in that situation.

    I had a few heart-catching moments when I knew hubby (then boyfriend, of course) bought a ring, and I’d get the feeling it would be at this time when… okay, so maybe this next time when… Then by the time he did it, I almost missed it. We were sitting at home, watching an Elvis movie, and he’d run out to grab a couple of slushies just prior. I was in a relatively foul mood, and trying not to show it – I was so focused on trying to enjoy his thoughtful gesture of getting my favorite drink that I didn’t notice the ring placed over the straw. He had to pick it up, hand it to me, and say, “Notice anything?” 😛

    • Hahaha! What was your reaction? I would never have lost it at him as h had no idea what I was thinking, so it wouldn’t have been his fault, and after the proposal he did do I’m really pleased he didn’t when I thought he was going to!

      • Ahh, I should clarify a bit – by losing it on him, I didn’t mean get angry, I meant like melt into a puddle of tears. 🙂

        Speaking of tears, that was pretty much my reaction – lots of happiness running down my face (with a slight hint of guilt for how grumpy I’d been with him in my head a few moments before). Hard to wrap my brain around the fact that this June will mark 29 years since that slushie!

  11. I haven’t had as big an expectation as this (I think so anyway), I mostly just have huge expectations in books and then they don’t deliver…

    It’s good that you can have a good laugh over that scenario, at least he did propose 🙂.

  12. I’ve been endlessly disappointed and have finally learned to expect nothing that I don’t plan for myself. Then when the unexpected happens, it is truly a lovely event. A few weeks ago, my husband walked into the house and said he had a surprise. From where I was sitting, I could hear but not see him, so I asked if it was flowers. He brings flowers to my mom who has Alzheimer’s disease all the time, and I’m always grateful that he’s so kind to her. But he rarely brings flowers to me and I really don’t care. So he finally moved into view, and in his hand was a huge bouquet of gorgeous flowers. I enjoyed them immensely for the week and a half they lasted.

    Your engagement was a wonderful surprise to you, but also to us. You’d written in several posts that you had no plans to get married, so when you became engaged, it was also a thrill for your readers. I bet I’m not the only reader who’s having a great time following your wedding planning, though I also understand you intend to keep much of it private – as you should.

    • Aww that’s lovely Sharon – it’s so nice to be surprised by the little things, just because, and it’s it’s so great that your husband is kind to your mum in what must be a really difficult situation…

      I haven’t done much else with the wedding planning as of late, but I have plenty of posts planned for the future haha!

  13. Love this story! Perhaps he was going for the old double-bluff 😉 Might be smarter than you give him credit for! Great little tale you can tell, nonetheless, and his gift this year is just perfect. Good on him!

    • Haha! It was a triple bluff – he told me later that he actually planned on proposing in a completely different way but then decided to do it on the spot where we were instead…

  14. Thank you for the laugh. Things always work out… as they are supposed to… in the end. Thank you so much for visiting our blog today! It was nice to see you there and it helped me find your terrific blog posts!! I hope you will visit again and even consider following us. Have a great day!

  15. Oh, this is a funny story now but I bet you were gutted. I confess when waiting for my hubby to propose (why was I waiting?!) a few ‘special’ days passed with nothing happening and I remember being upset about it at the time. But when it did happen, like you say, it outdid anything I could imagine. And not because it was over the top or anything, just that it was actually happening. 🙂 Hope you had a happy valentine’s day xx

      • Oh, I’d been kind of stressed about it for a while, then I finally decided I wasn’t going to worry any more, that I just needed to get on with my life. And I was telling my friends this. Meanwhile they all knew Marcus had got me a ring because another friend was ring shopping at the same time and when he went for his appointment the woman said ‘Oh, you must be Marcus.’ So they’re all saying, ‘hang in there, it will be fine.’ 😀
        Anyway, Marcus asked me where I wanted to go one day, said we could go anywhere I wanted, and I asked to go up to the Dandenongs, the hills on the edge of Melbourne. When we got there he took ages getting out of the car and when he did there was an obvious bulge in his pocket (as in a ring box) and we both became very stilted in our conversation, like we were on a first date, which was hilarious. Finally, as we looked out at Melbourne and the ocean, he asked me. I said yes, of course. 🙂

  16. I also had a “he’s definitely going to propose here/ now” situation– actually a couple before it actually happened! Ha Glad I’m not alone. But like you said, I’m so happy it didn’t happen on those occasions because the real one was even better. 🙂

  19. Lovely story…and so well told!
    I also love that he bought you two cards this year–because he just couldn’t decide–that’s also very romantic!

  23. Kind of remind me of Mr Bean Christmas special, more knowned for him walking his head stucked inside a turkey but more for the other part of the sketch when instead of buying the ring for his girl friend, that she showed him while window shopping, and propose, he got the big picture of a couple showned beside it, and then when her girlfriend was so upset and cried, he show her a little box, her all smiling, but not so when she opened the box and saw…..a small hook for the picture…of course I would not compare you two to these characters…:) but the story remind me of this hilarious tv episode. I guess on that day you must have felt quite upset, when time pass it does give another view on those things I suppose.

  27. Ken and I had been together for months and were living together. He said that for my birthday, he wanted to get me something really special, but I needed to come with him to try it on and make sure it fit. He drove me to Canadian Tire–to try on curling shoes. I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. But two weeks later after our first curling game, we came home and he got down on one knee with a little box and proposed. I told him about it after and it became a running family joke:-)

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