manslations

Well, I think we’ve got a candidate for “shortest question ever to make me poop myself.” Jackie writes:

How long should a woman date a man before she can rightfully expect a marriage proposal?

Dear Jackie,

Well, again, my compliments on such short question. Here’s why it’s a little tough to answer — I’ll ask YOU a question to illustrate:

How long should YOU date a man before he should rightfully expect that you would automatically accept a proposal of marriage?

Seven months? A year? Three months? At what point can a man rightfully expect that your answer is automatically going to be “yes”?

Weird question, right? And the answer is likely, “Well, how the hell should I know?” I mean, can you honestly say that after, say, six months of dating, he can rightfully expect that you would absolutely marry him? So how can we know the timetable for him to ask if you don’t know your timetable to say yes?

RIGHTFULLY EXPECT

When can you rightfully expect this? My first thought was, “I don’t know — when your dowry check clears?” The idea that you should “rightfully expect” a proposal of marriage by such-and-such a time has, I think, gone the way of the dodo.

(Manslator’s Note: This is a drawing of a dodo. I just wanted to include it because you just never see these kinds of drawings anymore. Even DRAWINGS of dodos seem to be extinct. And you might be fine with that, but I am not, ok? We now return you to your regularly scheduled manslation.)

You can, of course, have your OWN idea about how long you’re willing to be with someone before getting married. Hey, if you believe that a man must propose at, say, 6 months in, well, then that’s totally fine. But I don’t think that there currently exists an across-the-board, accepted, rulebook duration. So you should probably not assume that you’re both working with the same idea about that, and you should most DEFINITELY NOT expect that he knows what timetable you’re working with.

I think the question is, in a way, “What’s a reasonable amount of time?” And we can’t really even answer that. It seems to be different for everyone. Maybe the real question is, “What’s a reasonable amount of time for YOU?” Seems like you only want to ever marry one person if you can manage it (all statistics to the contrary, heh…ugh.) So the question becomes, what’s the earliest moment in which it would NOT be completely insane to consider asking, “Say, wanna do this and ONLY this until we’re dead?”

STANDARD RULES OFTEN = UNCOMFORTABLE MAN

Here’s why having a set deadline in months, years (minutes, nanoseconds) would be a tough thing. It’s impersonal and not specific to him. Marriage likely used to BE impersonal. And I imagine that during that time there were likely some accepted guidelines for this sort of thing because it was, essentially, a transaction. A business move, really. (Manslator’s Note: I bet life during that time was a BLAST.)

Sometimes when a guy feels like his woman has made up a “rule” about this sort of thing by which any and all suitors must abide, he starts feeling like a Lego piece — easily replaceable, totally interchangeable, and not very special. And with hook hands and snap-on hair (ok, that last part might just be for the legos. Well…most of the time anyway.) He might feel like he’s running through some impersonal obstacle course that you set up before you two ever met, and he had BETTER be ready by the deadline whether it makes any sense in this specific situation or not.

WHAT’S REALLY GOING ON?

I guess the real question is, are you in a situation right NOW that we’re talking about? Do you feel like there’s a guy who owes you a marriage proposal, but you’re not sure if you’re allowed to expect one? Because here’s the thing: while I don’t know of an accepted standard for EVERY situation anymore, I do think that each specific situation has it’s own standards. In each situation, I’d guess that there comes a moment by which you can start to expect that you move to the next level. Are you in such a situation, and has that time come?

Good luck, Jackie. I wish I had a more direct answer for you, but I think that’s the point — it’s all about your situation. I bet if you were to put some more specifics in the comments here, the Manslatees and I could help out.

What do you think ladies? Do you have a specific timeframe in your minds about this? How does it work?