Phoning It In

Asking this question of any other relatively well-adjusted adult –particularly a female one, it can seem – commonly meets with the sort of reaction you’d expect from having leaned over and given them a quick paper cut: an angry wince and a sharp intake of breath, quickly segueing into reproachful glares and/or physical retribution.

No matter which way you look at it popping the question over the phone remains the cowpat-smothered Tsar Bomba lurking in the boggiest furrow of the marriage proposal minefield. We’re stubborn here at Staggered, though, and refuse to fence it off completely – instead, how about a few pointers to help you minimise the potential fallout?

Extreme nerves may seem like the most universally understandable defence

...after all, who doesn’t imagine themselves likely to come across as a jabbering imbecile under the buckling pressure of a face-to-face proposal? Realistically, though, blind panic is probably the least acceptable excuse going: the recipient of your overtures could easily be forgiven for rejecting an applicant who favours conducting serious relationship business from behind an emotional dressing screen.

In this scenario, it’s impossible to claim that the phone is playing a vital role, which it must be if you’re even considering using it. No, all it’s really doing is providing the caller with a flimsy mask behind which they forlornly hope their mantling vulnerability might somehow be partially concealed. It won’t. So if your only excuse is a terminal lack of minerals, you probably shouldn’t even be bothering.

Equally, the telephone mustn’t be viewed as a modern enabler of the historically unfeasible ‘emergency’ proposal.

Anyone attempting to push a proposal through a barely-ajar window of question-popping opportunity should, with a few highly specific exceptions, be hearing some pretty shrill alarm bells already. This is of course particularly true if said window is closing due to your own precarious situation, as opposed to that of your significant other.

Once again, there will be clear-cut and specific exceptions to this rule. But, broadly speaking, while a proposal shrieked down a stuttering mobile as you cling one-handed to the remains of a collapsing Amazonian rope bridge may /seem/ quite the blockbuster gesture in the heat of the moment – to the incurable romantic with serious prioritisation issues, at any rate – in reality, nobody on the other end is likely to appreciate being put through that sort of emotional mangle. Besides, whatever answer you get will inevitably be heavily skewed by the circumstances, and therefore somewhat compromised in value.

Don’t drop a phone proposal completely out of the blue

Controversial, perhaps, but think about it: whoever chose to handle a major decision over the phone without requesting the luxury of hanging up, chewing it over and calling back later? Be sure you’ve at least previously discussed – in person – the idea of getting married.

Don’t send the ring on ahead of you

Unless you’re unlikely to see your partner for a very long time after the phone proposal. By holding on to it until you do actually see them, you get to propose again ‘properly’, and in doing so you’ll be keeping something back to bring to that therefore-no-less-special party. Few recipients will pass up at the opportunity to gleefully accept a second time, especially as it’ll be under even more romantic circumstances.

Don’t necessarily expect an immediate answer

Since being on a roughly equal footing isn’t a prerequisite for a phone conversation – caller and callee needn’t be in remotely similar situations or surroundings when a number is dialled – unannounced calls tend to be underpinned by a tacit understanding that interruptions, postponements and call-backs are compromises inherent to the medium.

Don’t treat the fact that a phone call is an entirely vocal platform as your warrant to try to talk them into it

You’ve asked a potentially hugely taxing question: prove that you respect their decision-making prowess by not loitering in the background hissing your favoured answer while they’re busy trying to formulate their own.

Don’t sell yourself (or your partner) short

Make sure you say your piece in full before stepping back and leaving the decision in their capable hands. Crucially, don’t just drop the four-word bomb and then scatter – explain exactly why you want them to marry you, and precisely what it would mean to you if they did.

Don’t do it pissed

Or even slightly tipsy. It’s ludicrously easy to tell if someone on the other end of a phone has had a few to ‘loosen up.’ This is true no matter how much practise you might’ve had at playing sober during sheepish calls to friends and family from the police station.

Don’t do it from the police station

Obviously.

Do consider making your actual phone proposal just one part of a more elaborate gesture

Try sending something deeply personal – a video of you might fill a dual role in your absence – to your loved one, then being on the phone when it arrives or is opened. This obviously relies on organisation, luck, and perhaps the intervention of a third party, but it’s definitely doable. And, if you pull it off cleanly, it’ll basically make you look like some kind of all-powerful romance warlock.

Do make it fairly apparent that a call of this magnitude is on the cards before you actually hit them up with it

Especially if you are desperately hoping for an answer before one of you hangs up in a blind panic. Explicit forewarning may feel like you’re putting a dampener on the Dear Diary moment, so you’ll have to assess your partner’s ideal balance between the two for yourself. Still, some weighty prior hints coupled with an agreed date/time for the call are likely to be appreciated more in this sort of situation than the potentially ill-advised dramatic coup of catching your intended completely off guard.

Do come up with some suitably high-quality lead-in to the actual proposal

It needn’t be minutely scripted, it shouldn’t be overblown and it mustn’t sound too rehearsed – but you don’t want the question to sound like either an agonising wrench, or something that dropped in through a conversational crack. Confidence, maturity and absolute frankness are your key allies on this mission.

Do be prepared for lengthy silences given the potential toughness of the question you’re asking

If they do occur, they’ll be even more excruciating than they would be in person – they can’t be padded with comforting body language or meaningful eye-contact – but remember why they’re happening. Although they might seem to you like vertiginous chasms of whistling nothingness, to the person on the other end of the phone they probably feel more like trying to skim-read the complete works of Tolstoy at knifepoint. Except, y’know…in a good way. You hope.

Do remember that, whichever form the proposal takes, there is never anything wrong with getting a delayed or deferred answer

An “I’ll think about it” mean’s you’re being considered as a serious candidate – and if you felt they’d just say yes to any old chump brandishing a pricey ring, you presumably wouldn’t be asking in the first place. You absolutely can’t expect such a hefty decision to wriggle its way to you down a phone line any more easily or quickly than it might do in person; probably quite the opposite, in fact.

Do above all remember that in any marriage proposal, one thing alone is more important than the plan, the setting and the execution combined: the proposal itself

The fact that you’re asking someone to marry you. Everything else is so much window-dressing, and although you both deserve to dress this particular window as well as you’re able, the right customer won’t view any of it as a deal-breaker on its own.