An Almost Proposal

I’d asked Lapdog to give me an hour or so, to “finish off what I was doing,” but I really just needed to shave my legs et al. I rushed around, primping and preening, and by the time he arrived, exactly one hour and six minutes later, I looked fresh, smelled delightful, and had removed every single hair on my body bar my scalp and eyebrows.

“Where’s Bestie?” Lapdog asked, as I let him in and led him up the stairs to The Flat.

“Working. You want coffee? Red Bull? There’s some beer in the fridge.” I opened the fridge to prove my point, then grabbed a can of Red Bull for myself. When I turned around, the image in front of me was so shocking that the can slid right out of my hand, landed on the floor with a resounding thud, then started spraying everywhere from a teeny-tiny hole.

Lapdog was down on one knee, holding out a ring in his hand. A somewhat pretty ring, admittedly; cubic zirconia in shades of pink and diamond-esque, I later found out. Not quite the engagement ring of my dreams. Still, he’d tried, I suppose.

“I want to marry you,” he said.

“I don’t think that’s how it goes,” I laughed, grabbing a cloth, cleaning up the spraying Red Bull, and – more importantly – ignoring the ring. Oh, and his non-question.

“Will you marry me?” he said next.

I sighed. “Lapdog, get up off the floor. What are you doing? Do you seriously think that we’re in the right kind of place for marriage? We haven’t spoken since NASS. I chose another man, for fuck’s sake.”

“Where is he, then?”

“I beg your pardon?”

He waved his hands around. “Where’s the other man? He’s not here, is he? I am.”

“We don’t live together, idiot.” I busied myself with the cloth and some running water, trying very hard not to throw it at him. “We’re not joined at the hip.”

“You’re just scared,” he said. “Afraid of commitment, or something. You know that this is a good thing.”

His ego was impressive, and I couldn’t help but snort at his words. I was hardly afraid of commitment; I just wanted it with another man. That man might have chosen another country, but that was hardly the point. Lapdog didn’t know that. I made that decision to pick Grey. It’s what I wanted, still, despite the miles between us.

“Maybe you’re right,” I said, instead of arguing with him. “But I’m still not saying yes to your almost proposal.”

“Almost proposal?”

I raised my eyebrows. “Do you think that was a real, romantic, tell-the-grandkids-all-about-it kinda marriage proposal?”

He held out his hand. “I got you a ring, see?”

“It’s not even in a box.” 

“It came in a little bag,” he shrugged.

I grabbed another can of Red Bull, plus a beer for him, then guided him into the living room. “Do you even want to marry me?” I asked.

“It wouldn’t be terrible…”

I shook my head. “You’re an idiot, Lapdog. Take the ring back. We’re not getting engaged.”

He refused to take the ring back. For some strange reason I still have it. It’s in my jewellery box, right next to the engagement ring that I said yes to, that was also an almost proposal.

I’ve been “engaged” (ish) three times in my life, but not one of those men actually popped the question properly, and they certainly didn’t get down on one knee. Lapdog was the only one to come fully prepared with a ring; the ex-husband and I went shopping for one, three days after drunkenly getting engaged. The other proposal was with a pair of Louboutins from Big Love, but they were more of a promise than a real engagement, really.  Those are definitely stories for other blog posts, on other days.

I still can’t believe that Lapdog proposed to me, though. Well, an almost proposal. Daft cunt. It did teach me something important, though: we were never going to work in a relationship, and if we kept trying, we wouldn’t even make it as friends. We (I) decided to take a break for both.

The next blog post in the dating timeline is this one: The Fireman’s Sister (Number 17.)