Yikes – this is not a pleasant situation. But unless you’ve been on either side of the rejection, you really have no idea what it’s like…or what happens in the aftermath.
It’s why you have to dig into these stories of rejected proposals from AskReddit users.
1. Mom
“My mother had a sweetheart back in the 50s who got her name tattooed on his arm and then proposed. She turned him down. [cue sad trombone]
Last she heard, he had married someone with the same name as her.”
2. Strike!
“Not me, but some poor soul at my local bowling alley.
We were rolling rocks on a Friday night, the bowling alley was happening. The tunes stopped and the guy on the intercom asked if we could all direct our attention to lane 16.
A guy dropped to his knee and asked his lady friend to marry him. She said no. She looked embarrassed and stormed out.
He took a swig of his beer and rolled a ball down the lane. I’d like to think he thought the music would come back on and everyone would go about their business. Nope. Everyone was shocked and just watched him bowl like 4 times before the music came back on and he finally just sat down. Felt like an eternity of cringe.”
3. Get that figured out
“My mom turned down my dad’s original proposal.
My parents had been dating for roughly three months when they got pregnant with me. They had moved in together and things had been going well. My mom was making dinner and my dad was on his knees fixing the kitchen door and out of nowhere he asks her to marry him. She thinks he’s kidding and tells him he can’t be serious. His exact line was “well I’m already on my knees.” He had married before but had been separated from his ex wife for a number of years, but they were still technically married. So my mom told him he needed to get that figured out and propose in not such a dopey way.”
4. Apology proposal
“I found out my ex was cheating on me and immediately broke it off with him. The next day he showed up on my doorstep, in the snow crying. When I went outside he got on one knee and presented me with a heart shaped ring.
I went back inside and baked cookies. It was a great decision, as I met my current boyfriend a few years later and he makes me truly happy.”
5. Want to elope?
“There was a weird guy who worked at a thrift store where a friend of mine worked when we were in high school; he was in his early 20s. I was about 16 when this happened; I became friends with a few members of the staff and he was a part of that group. He was always weird and kinda creepy but we had similar tastes in music and hung out with some of the same people.
Teenage priorities. He was pretty upfront about finding me attractive from the get-go although I made it clear I wasn’t into him in that way. Because I was so young and inexperienced with these things and pretty live-and-let-live I didn’t see any reason to not be nice.
I agreed to go over to his apartment one time while killing time waiting for another friend to get home from her job so we could hang out. kept complimenting me and talking about how “perfect” I was. I cut the visit short because it wasn’t sitting well with me.
The next time we hung out he tried to convince me to run off right then and there and elope with him. I thought he was joking at first. He wouldn’t come off of it and then I realized he was actually serious. He had this weird intensity that was extremely off-putting. I left immediately when I realized he was actually serious and managed to never see him again. It’s been 20ish years and I still feel gross typing this out. Was he actually joking? I hope so but jfc that was awkward.”
6. God told me…
“High school bf had dumped me after two years, revealing that he had never truly loved me. I went to college, and we still had occasional contact over my first semester. When I came home for Christmas break, he asked me to give him a ride home from where we had been with a group of friends, telling me he needed to ask me something.
In my car in front if his apartment, he told me that he didn’t want an answer right then, to go home and pray about it, but God told him to ask me to marry him. I went home and went to sleep instead, then told him no thank you the next day. He seemed disappointed but totally unsurprised.”
7. Priorities
“A girl asked to marry me in 3rd grade. I said no, I don’t have time for marriage, I need to play with my friends.
She said OK. I went on to play with my friends.
All things considered, I think that went well.”
8. Different cultures
“Not me, but my wife.
While she was at BCT for the National Guard, (before we were married, but we had been dating about 5 years at that point) a guy with a very thick accent told her that he needed to speak to her father. Well, she has not had contact with her father since sometime early in high school (hell, I’ve never met him, never plan to either) and she told this guy such. He then went on and said that he must speak to her father. Eventually it comes out that he wants to speak to her father about her dowry.
Something about his father has many cattle and he could provide for her very well. I think she told him something about how that’s not how things are done in the US, her father had no say in who she married, and she was happily dating someone. Dude backed off and apparently was otherwise pleasant for the rest of the time there, just a monstrous amount of culture shock. I still laugh about it every time I remember her telling me about it.”
9. Cheater
“We’d only been together for a few months. Both military and stationed in Germany. I was about to deploy and my contract ended pretty much as soon as I was set to return. She said we should get married so we could stay together when I got back. I’d already been divorced at this point and wasn’t about to marry some girl I’d only been with a few months. So I told her we’d see how we held up with me deployed and cross that bridge when we came to it.
About 2 months into my deployment she and a friend of mine eloped. I was hurt but boy did I dodge a bullet.
Also their marriage ended exactly how you’d expect… Divorced in less than 6 months. She was f*cking a couple other guys on the side and he was too stupid/naive to realize. Remember folks; if they’ll cheat with you, they’ll cheat on you.”
10. I will own you
“We had only been dating for about a month, he was pretty obsessive at first but I thought maybe it would just be a phase so I blew it off. One day, he brought me to a jewelers to get my ring size and I could pick out the ring. I also thought it was just a promise ring, no biggie, people do those kinda things early on as well. What got ME was when he bought it, took me to a park, got down on one knee and said “I love you baby…I knew I wanted to do this the moment we matched (unfortunately on Tinder)…you’re the love of my life. Now I can show everyone that I own you. Will you marry me?”
He was gonna OWN me. Like a pet. I wanted to wring his neck for saying that. I don’t get offended easily but saying “owned” really pissed me off. I helped him up back to his feet tho and we walked back to his car that he was current living in, right down the street from my condo so he could “keep an eye on me”, and I told him I wasn’t going to marry him and that I thought it was best we should break up and move on. I didn’t feel comfortable having him drive me home so I took an Uber after that.
Unfortunately, still being the obsessive guy he was, he tried with the coming to my condo every day with gifts and crying and just trying to make me feel bad and get back together. Then it got to him getting angry and threats. After about a month, he gave up. And I haven’t seen him since, it’s been a year now. Thank god.”
