Obligation Day pt. 2 [29/02/12]: 'Proposals and Performance'

If you were not aware (and I know I wasn't, largely due to the onset of stinking illness and a general 'drooziness' which is currently making it hard for me to read the date properly) today is February 29th, the leap day of this leap year¹. There is a part of me that is very fond of this date, both for its novelty and its evidence of humanity's delightful ability to make things up and then stick to them. I realise that there's probably some very clever mathematics behind it, but I like to imagine that the leap year conversation was something akin to:

     "Great Scott! We're running out of time!"
     "What?"
     "The years are getting ahead of themselves! The calendar doesn't line up properly!"
     "Oh, well, we'll just add another day then."
     "Can we do that?"
     "I don't know."
     "I shall ask Science!"

     *asks Science*

     "What does Science say?"
     "Science says 'Go for it!'"
     "Excellent."
     "Man ... Science is such a cool dude."
     "Isn't he just?"
     "Smashing."
     "Quite."
     "Yes."
     "Indeed."
     "Hm."
     "Spiffing."
     "Quite."²

... but I digress.

     On leap years, 'tradition' seems to be the word of the hour (or day), and with that word is what may be considered its counter, 'transgression'. But what, I wonder, are we to do on a day that seems to hold with both? What do we make of a tradition of transgression?
     I am talking, of course, about the tradition of women being allowed to propose to men on February 29th. (It used to be that women could propose on any day of the leap year, but it was later brought down to just the single day. There's progress for you!)
     I must begin by instinctively questioning the wording here. Women are 'allowed' to propose. That is to say, they are given permission. "By whom?" I ask. And I can only infer from this statement that women are not allowed to propose any other time.
     As a result of this, a woman who proposes to a man on the 29th is, I can only imagine, made very conscious of the weight of her transgression, whether the reaction be positive or negative. The man is equally likely to feel this weight. More often than not, he is expected to feel, by becoming the proposee, emasculated. And one doesn't have to look hard to find comments each leap year about men hiding from their girlfriends or locking themselves away from women (as if they are such irresistible, marriageable specimens). Plenty of newspapers chime in, too, sporting headlines such as "Watch out gents, it's a leap year!" - a nice, big, bold, warning that the predatory female is come to get them.
     This anxiety isn't a new one. A few images of early twentieth-century satirical postcards (as well as other images of women proposing) can be found at the wonderful Vagenda blog here. I could examine these images at length, but the idea is pretty evident. Though the leap year tradition promises an opportunity to forego traditional limitations, it almost certainly in practice edifies them. It is a tradition of highlighting transgression, but not challenging that definition, because, ludicrous as it may seem, stigmas don't just go away if one day in every one thousand four hundred and sixty-one there's a quaint change.
     It's hardly liberating.³
     Now, I have already mentioned fear of emasculation, and I'd like to comment on that a little further. Even in school, the idea that the boy should always be the one to ask the girl out was pretty concrete. Traditions of gender roles are cemented at a young age, and the word literally used towards someone in an instance of their girlfriend taking the romantic initiative was "weak". I don't believe that fear of female proposal is really any different. Nor, as it happens, is it any less mistaken or pathetic. I'd like to put this simply: If you believe that the order in which people express their affection in a relationship is more important than the quality and substance of that affection, you're doing it wrong. Seriously.
     And, yet, I think there's a lot more to this proposal problem. There's a problem with the whole event of it that goes beyond gender. It is, I fear, our old friend, obligation.
     Just take a moment to think about this. A man decides to propose to his partner, and so he buys a ring, maybe some flowers or other gifts, arranges the day, organises everyone he wants to be there, prepares what he wants to say and how he wants to say it, collects up his courage, and is finally ready to do the deed. He may do all this weeks or months in advance. His partner, perhaps unaware that all this is going on, gets about five seconds to make a decision. Real fair, no? Now, I realise that this is not always the way it goes. Some couples have the sense to talk about the prospect of marriage at some length before a proposal is made. Others at least try to lay hints and suggestions so the proposee is not completely in the dark. (This of course has led to many painfully predictable rom-com scenarios with false signals galore. If I may quickly address an open letter to Hollywood: STOP.)
     But generally speaking, aren't proposals supposed to be a romantic surprise? Well, I'm sorry to break it to you, dear reader, but surprises are actually kind of awful. Not all of them, that is. Just the awful ones. A surprise cupcake when one returns home is lovely. A surprise visit from an old friend can be super. A surprisingly positive response to an essay you struggled writing, that's grand. The problem with the proposal surprise, however, as well as surprise birthday parties and other such events, is that it is all about conspiring to leave someone out of the loop. And when it comes to asking someone to marry you, I can't help feel that it's something they should have just the teeny-tiniest say in.
     Put quite literally on the spot, the surprised proposee is obliged to give a response in an instant. Even if they say yes, doesn't that seem a little inconsiderate? And it gets worse. The proposer more and more these days feels obliged to make an event - a stunt - out of their proposal. We've all probably seen people proposing in restaurants, at sports games on big monitors, surrounded by all their friends and family, or otherwise very much in the public eye. Proposing has become a competition, and everyone is watching. Now, I don't mean to say that one's gestures cannot be elaborate, but would you want to be asked to make a major decision while dozens/hundreds/thousands/millions of people - possibly all strangers - watched and judged your reactions? I know I wouldn't.
     There's plenty of footage of these extravagant proposals being turned down and people being publicly shamed as a result. But it's not just the proposer. Think about the proposee. They are transformed into that horrible person who didn't even play along and say yes just because the cameras were rolling. (Excuse me while my head explodes from the stupid of this.) Even in intimate settings with family and friends, the surprised proposee feels obliged to say yes. If that is not cruel obligation, I don't know what is! It has zilch to do with the affection and intimacy between the couple involved, and everything to do with the audience watching. How romantic! I think I'm being kind when I call the people who perform these surprise public proposals inconsiderate ba*boop*rds.
     And I don't think it's too much of a stretch of the imagination to think that some men quake at the idea of being proposed to less because of traditions of gender roles, and more because they wouldn't want to be put in the same horrible position of pressure they would inflict on their partners - and they even get to know in advance which day it could happen!
     The whole business of marriage proposals is steeped in obligation, from the gender roles to the actions involved. Question: what's with the getting down on one knee thing, anyway?⁴ It's tradition at its worst, because it transforms what should be a personal, intimate expression between people into a pressuring mass of prescribed conventions. The same, I believe, can be said of weddings.⁵
     At no point in any of this do I mean to suggest that there is anything wrong with proposing. There's nothing wrong with rings and flowers and one-knee-bending-down-upon-ing. There's nothing wrong with extravagant gestures. There's nothing wrong with any of the traditions. But only as long as the focus is on you as a couple and the genuine affection between you. It should have nothing to do with anybody else.
     Whether one person proposes to the other, whether that person be male or female, whether it takes place on any given day, whether you invite people to witness, that is all for you as a couple to decide. Perform your own gestures. Use your own words. Make your own traditions. Because, in the end, the proposal and the wedding are just events. They signify the continuation of your relationship; and it is not for anyone but you to decide what that relationship is or how you express it.

tl;dr:
1. Don't be an inconsiderate ba*boop*rd.
2. Propose if, when, and however you please.
3. ????
4. Profit!

¹ A leap year can also be known as an 'intercalary' or 'bissextile year'. I for one know which name I find the most entertaining.
² I confess, most of the imagined conversations in my head end like that, and an astonishing number involve Science being a pretty cool dude. Also watch this for that much-wanted hit of leap year knowledge.
³ This whole thing becomes even more ridiculous when one considers non-heterosexual relationships. Should a lesbian also have to wait four years for a specific twenty-four hour window to ask her partner to marry her (if indeed she could [as she should be allowed to] do so)?
⁴ This is called 'Genuflection'. How romantic!
⁵ Giving away the bride. Liberating, much?