Overrated – Extravagant engagement stunts

Ned Bitters

This week’s inductee into the “Overrated Hall of Fame” is … extravagant engagement stunts.

In honor of Valentine’s Day, I was going to go with the overratedness of the blowjob, but I figured I might be shooting myself in the crotch. At next year’s Christmas party, should some liquored up HoboTrashcan staffer (preferably female) feel the desire to suck off ol’ Ned Bitters, I don’t want her remembering this column and changing her mind, figuring I wouldn’t appreciate a drunken rimjob. (Are there any other kind, really?) But the blowjob is overrated. Great, yes, but overrated.

So instead, I decided to pillory something else Valentine’s Day-related: those knuckleheads who turn what should be a special, intimate act between a man and woman (no, not the blowjob), and turn into a pathetic act of narcissism that screams, “Look at me! Aren’t I great! Aren’t I creative!” No, it screams, “Aren’t you a Sears Stanley lifetime guarantee tool?”

You know the scene I’m talking about. The guy at the ballgame who arranges for him and his mortified girlfriend to be on the jumbtron as he kneels in a beer-splattered aisle to pop the question. Or the boob who has some gargantuan banner unfurled on the building across the street while he and his honey share a bag lunch on a park bench. Or the dufus who pays for an airplane to drag a message behind it while the couple lounges on a beach.

Gestures like this should serve a giant red flag to any girl with the sense god gave a gnat. She should see this classless grandstanding as just the tip of his selfish, it’s-really-all-about-me iceberg. Guys who pull these stunts aren’t doing it for their girl. They are doing it all for themselves so that they’ll have a self-aggrandizing tale they can tell to every single fucking person they run into for the next 18 months.

Here’s are a few tips for all you Arrangers of the Big Blowout Bonanza Engagement: Keep the story to yourself, or keep it as short as that pathetic cock you try so desperately to compensate for by driving a Hummer, owning a great dane and embarrassing your woman with the Big Blowout Bonanza Engagement. A man’s engagement tale should never last longer than 30 seconds. Let me give you some examples that are acceptable:

1. I put the ring box in the Christmas tree, and when we were opening presents, I pulled it down and handed it to her. It was really nice. She cried. She said yes. She blew me under the tree. Huh? Oh, it was great and all, but I’d rather have fucked her.

2. I had made dinner at my place, and after the pasta we were sharing our favorite dessert and finishing the wine. When she asked for a napkin, I handed her a ring instead. She cried. She said yes. She blew me right there at the table. Huh? Oh, it was great, but it’s not as good as if she’d straddled me right there at the table.

3. I stuck the ring way up my ass, and she found it when she was fisting me. She cried. She said yes. She washed her hand and arm, then she blew me. Huh? Oh, it was great, but I come harder when she’s fisting me.

Any story longer than one of those means you are insufferably self-obsessed, or incapable of gauging a listener’s interest, or gay.

Don’t involve others in your moment. If you’re not man enough to present the ring and pop the question by your big bad self, you probably aren’t man enough for marriage. Leave out a third party. This includes your waiter, your usher or your warden. Asking a girl to marry you should be, like masturbation, a solo activity. A third party should not have to hold your ring or your balls, respectively.

One final tip for you attention-starved nitwits: don’t capture the moment on film. No one, and I include her mom, her friends, and – in the case of the fisting – your perverted uncle, wants to see this intimate, private moment. It forces us to lie. We smile, we gush, we tell you the moment was sweet or special or moving. But we couldn’t care less. We resent you for wasting our time and energy.

So, if you must be the big man with the big plan at engagement time, go ahead and embarrass yourself and your girl. Just don’t make the rest of us part of your moment. Don’t share the video or wear me out with an endless story about how original and wonderful you are. I might lose my patience, at which time I might be forced to tell you to blow me. Then again, on second thought …

Ned Bitters is, in fact, overrated. You can contact him at teacherslounge@hobotrashcan.com.