What do you get when you go out and buy a diamond and choose a public place to propose to the girl of your dreams and then, when you pop the question, you are rejected in public? You get a big scar to carry around for the rest of your life or you become an unending subject for the rum bar conversations you will generate if you resort to the bottle for comfort.

Or, you could go right out and shoot yourself and spare yourself a life of shame.

Whatever the result, that guy who chose to propose before thousands in the football stadium in the United States of America recently must now be licking his wounds.

According to Nkrumah Steward's online article: "At an Indiana Pacers-Washington Wizards game, a guy used the end of a half-time contest to bring his girlfriend down to the court blindfolded.

She went along under the assumption that she was playing a game where if she could find a local bank's mascot while blind folded that she would win free Wizards tickets.

When she found the mascot and they pulled the blindfold off of her, her man climbed out of the costume, grabbed a microphone, got down on one knee and as he began to speak to the woman, she paused and grabbed her face in shock.

She looked right at him shaking her head no and then turned away and ran in full sprint off the basketball court.

Soon after it was clear that she wasn't coming back, a message reading "She said No!" appeared on the area's scoreboard.

I know this sounds bad, blaming the poor guy for what happened to him, but damn dude, you don't ask a girl to marry you unless you are pretty damn sure she is going to say yes.

Take this as a new rule, don't even think about asking her to marry you until she draws you into one of those 'where do you see this relationship going?' conversations.

That is a pretty sure sign that she is thinking about upgrading you.

Something in my gut tells me that this girl wasn't expecting this in the least. From the look on her face, being proposed to by this guy was the furthest thing in her mind."

Modest proposal

What a difference in the modest proposal that took place right here in Cross Roads, Kingston, on Tuesday, August 25.

The moral of this story is that a man must be sure that the woman is dying to marry him and the only possible injury she could do to his ego is to ask, what took you so long to ask?

Of course, it does not hurt for a woman to propose now and then.

lifestyle@gleanerjm.com