Every woman likes to be proposed to, even if she means to refuse. At least,
until I’d racked up a couple of marriage offers myself, that’s what I believed.
Aged fifteen, I read of one thirtysomething who’d totted up five and was
happy to boast of it in a national newspaper. Then, I considered her lucky,
glamorous, popular with boys. Everything that I, as a teenager, wasn’t. (My
adolescence can be summarized by one incident in which I took a
gobstopper out of my mouth on a train. A man leaned forward in his seat and
said, “Oh! I thought you were deformed.”)
Years later, I realized that the proposal collector and I were a lot alike. You
have to be quite a twit to allow matters to escalate to the point where some
guy assumes you’ll agree to rely on him for your life’s entertainment when
you have no intention of doing any such thing. (No man pops the question
unless he is convinced of a yes. Which says not very much for the perception
and self-regard of quite a few men.)
I’m being harsh. If it happens once, it’s understandable. There are certain
men who need to get married, for whom the woman is almost incidental to
proceedings. The wife is the tedious yet necessary ingredient, similar to
yeast in bread. This sort of man fixes on his target rather like a pit bull, and
any girl who can’t run fast enough is at risk. Then it’s not her fault
