Man-gagement

Just before New Years Eve, one of my friends proposed to his girlfriend. She said yes, and he placed a gigantic rock on her left ring finger to symbolize their commitment to each other. Beautiful no??

Until recently, I had pretty much hated the idea of spending anywhere from 7 to 30 grand on a ring just to prove how much I cared about a woman and so that all her friends can ooh and ahh over it. It seemed to me that there is so much more you can do with that money.. ie put a down payment on a house, take a trip around the world together, or in general start the college fund for your potential children. All of which seem to me to be a much better use of the funds.

Well this past weekend, I met a couple who took a different approach to this whole engagement thing.. They coined the phrase.. Man-gagement.

Now a Man-gagment does not replace any part of the actually traditional engagement, so a ring must still be bought, and the guy needs to get down on one knee and "pop the question".. however a Man-gagement does even the playing field ladies.. The idea behind it is to even the amount of financial burden the couple faces equally due to the engagement.. in orders the guy, soon to be husband, gets gifts equal to or reasonable compared to financial ability to that of the ring he purchased for his bride to be. In the case of the couple I talked with, it was a big screen TV (which had already been mounted to the wall and gave me a hard on), a nice (as the guy put it Flava Flav style watch), and a nice gas grill. At the moment of our conversation, the bride to be had the ring, the husband to be had received the TV, the watch and grill were still forth coming.

I will not say that the Man-gagement idea has totally pushed me down the road of purchasing an incredibly large diamond ring for my bride to be (not that there is one at the moment ladies.. email me at francis.antao@gmail.com) but rather put an interesting twist on getting engaged. It makes it a couple commitment, having both people invested similarly into the engagement.

Now the idea of receiving a TV when I get engaged has intrigued me a little bit more to the idea of settling down.. especially if its a 61 in HDTV.. ladies remember to take notes now.. but it still seems like there is a lot of money being spent prior to the biggest expense of them all the actual wedding. However, for those guys out there who are looking for a reason to pop the question.. the Man-gagment is here.