Public marriage proposals aren’t romantic – they’re a form of coercion

I clearly remember the first time I witnessed a public proposal of marriage. My wife and I were out for dinner on Valentine’s Day (when we still did things like that), and we had gone to some terribly chic and expensive restaurant in Chelsea (when we still had money).

At some point, we became aware of a kerfuffle, and it quickly emerged that a man was on one knee and holding up a ring to his dining companion, who he obviously wished to be his wife. I can recall him clearly, as he had a dodgy moustache and nasty baggy suit – we were just coming out of the nineties – and I can also recall the woman’s reaction, which was one of complete shock.

After what seemed like an age, she said yes. Because we were in a terribly chic and expensive restaurant in Chelsea, rather than applause, the only response from our fellow diners consisted of an elderly SW3 matron sourly uttering the words, “Oh for heaven’s sake”.

At the time, I thought that comment was ungracious, perhaps even downright unpleasant, but in retrospect it was absolutely right. Public proposals are an utter disgrace, and the men who make them – and it is always men – should be permanently banned from getting married. In fact, I’d go further, and require that they should be forced into some kind of treatment, as such behaviour is a massive red flag, and indicative of all sorts of psychological unpleasantness that urgently requires lancing.

If you are on social media, then you will see such public proposals regularly, and you will realise they follow the same pattern. Take the example recently posted by Dublin Airport on Instagram, complete with the cheesy caption “Love is in the air at Dublin Airport”. A stewardess is seen walking into the arrivals hall, whereupon a young man presents her with some cheap flowers. Onlookers, aware of what’s about to happen, start clapping and cheering. Then the man reaches into a bum bag by his armpit – how classy! – and fishes out a white box which evidently contains a ring, and gets down on one knee.

What happens next is telling, and is a moment that is present in every public proposal video – the woman steps back. In this instance, she steps back five times, until there is a gap of some two metres, perhaps more. She then does something else that is common to all these videos – she puts her hands over her face. There is a pause, and she then accepts. More applause by the crowd, a hug, and then the third common element – the man waves to the onlookers.

This ghastly choreography is almost identical to that which was recently seen in a video posted to Twitter by Newcastle University, in which a male graduate is seen proposing to his girlfriend just before she is about to receive her degree on stage. There are those same steps back, the hands over the face, and the smug male wave to the applauding crowd.

You do not need to be an expert in body language to see what is going on. The woman is being placed – by the man – into a state of shock and acute public embarrassment. Her ability to refuse the proposal is almost completely compromised by the presence of so many onlookers, and her agency is therefore massively diminished. It is not hard to see how some men who do this to women may in effect be practising coercive control, and any smart money would bet on the side of such men proving to be extremely manipulative husbands.

The other troubling element is the evident male narcissism. By making a private act public, such men are making the event a piece of theatre, albeit one in which only the half the cast has agreed to appear. What should be an intimate moment between two equals is now rendered into a performance that is essentially all about the man. The woman now merely has a supporting role. This is especially so in the case of the degree ceremony, in which the woman’s starring role of receiving her degree on stage was completely usurped and turned into a very different role in a very different piece of theatre by a supreme act of selfishness.

The social media managers of places such as Dublin Airport and Newcastle University should be aware that these public proposals are far from popular. The Dublin video has been watched 17.7 million times on Instagram, yet it has only garnered 1.2 million likes, which strongly suggests to me that 90 percent of viewers did not like what they saw. I cannot do the number-crunching for the graduation proposal video, because tellingly, Newcastle University has deleted the tweet in the face of much opprobrium.

The only public proposal video I ever wish to see is one in which the woman says no, and not only that, but also publicly lambasts the man for putting her in such an egregious position. This, I hope, would go viral, and make some men realise that there is a vast difference between taking control of a situation and taking control of a person. The motives behind public proposals may be romantic, but ultimately they are the very opposite of what true love means.