Jamaicans never cease to amaze me. In case you missed it, Olando Lawrence proposed to his girlfriend in the middle of Cross Roads last Tuesday. Him all get policeman fi block traffic fi him! I'm happy for the guy, I really am. But being the grumpy cynic I always am (what can I say, it's in my DNA), this just makes it even harder for the rest of the male population to propose now.

Imagine, all those guys who want to propose to their girlfriends but only planned to say to her one day, "So wha yu seh? Wi a go do a ting early next year?" have to abandon those plans! I'm not saying that would have been a recommended way of doing things, but to each his own. Now, however, this guy has raised the bar higher than when Sergey Bubka used to do the pole vault. Some of these guys can't reach that height. Heck, some of them don't even have a pole with which to vault.

Walk in the park

If you thought that taking her for a walk in the park and then just getting down on one knee was a good idea, try find something else man; that's too old-school! If you were planning to propose by having the waiter bring her dessert (let's say a slice of chocolate mousse cake) and the ring is on the plate, try something else. The methods are going to have to be more creative because women are 'falla fashin' and will demand their men come up with something special. Maybe you'll have to write her name across a billboard flashing the proposal. Or, perhaps you can work out something with a pilot to carry the message while flying low over her house.

But after all that hubbub, what if di likkle miss did seh no? After all that trouble and planning? Man, I wouldn't want to be in the shoes of any man who goes through all that and gets rejected. Which brings me to another point. Doesn't it put the women in difficult situations? Suppose she really likes the guy but doesn't want to marry him, at least not yet. What is she supposed to do? If she says yes when she really doesn't want to, she loses. If she says no because she really isn't sure, all the onlookers will give her a hard time about it. Or maybe the guys who try this stuff are so sure about the relationships that they are confident of the answer. Dem braver dan me sah!

I hope the Cross Roads Casanova and his bride to be have a long and fruitful marriage. If they stick together, imagine di bashment at the 50th anniversary!

Propose to me at daviot.kelly@gleanerjm.com

Olando Lawrence's unforgettable and very creative proposal to his girlfriend Stacy-Lee Cole in the middle of Cross Roads in Kingston last week Tuesday morning. Ian Allen/Staff Photographer