Engaging Conversation

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    "Sae (left) said it while sober"

    Gabrielle: Breakfast is served. Get em' (while) they're hot!
    Victor Lang: Marry me?
    Gabrielle: They're only toaster waffles.

    —Desperate Housewives, "God, That's Good"

    So you meet a member of your preferred gender for the first time and initiate a conversation. They might be a coworker, a friend of a friend, or even a stranger you're meeting in a trendy juice bar: in any case, it's a casual, low-key meeting. Things are going along smoothly when suddenly, in describing oneself, your new acquaintance says "I spend six hours a day editing All The Tropes."

    You can hardly believe your ears: you spend seven hours a day on All The Tropes! After being told by your friends (both of them) that you have a problem, at last you've found a kindred spirit! How do you express your glee at your mutual interests?

    You ask them to marry you, right then and there.

    Oh, of course you don't mean it. It's exaggeration for dramatic effect. In fact, if you feel compelled to say this right away upon meeting someone, you both are much more likely to become Platonic Life Partners: tossing love and sex into the mix would overcomplicate what would otherwise be a close (and maybe occasionally sexy) friendship.

    Or you do mean it and you're even more pathetic than either of your friends realized.

    For this trope without the commitment, see Geeky Turn On.

    Examples of Engaging Conversation include:

    Anime and Manga

    • The Hidamari Sketch 4koma above. Hiro offers to make some soup for Miyako, who is feeling nauseous from the alcohol she accidentally drank. Miyako and Sae respond with dual Visible Silence followed by dual "Will you marry me?" The title of that 4koma is "Sae said it while sober".
    • Raichou of Kyouran Kazoku Nikki does this to Pierre after tasting one of his desserts.
    • In S.S. Astro Izumi said this to her fellow teacher after the food, much to the chagrin of Kaname, who really has a crush on her.
    • In the Azumanga Daioh manga, Minamo-sensei does this to ten-year-old Chiyo. Of course, it was entirely related to Chiyo's household abilities, especially cooking.
    • In Hayate the Combat Butler, a young Nagi says this to Isumi when she compliments her manga (a big thing for Nagi).
      • Ayumu also does this to Hinagiku... sort of.
      • Machina also does this to Maria when she makes him a hamburger.
    • Mashiro of Bakuman｡ accidentally asks his crush Mizuki to marry him while they are talking about their goals. She actually accepts, but only on the condition that they won't see each other until their goals are reached.
    • Claire Stanfield from Baccano!! is known to do this all the time. The difference is that, unlike anyone else here, he's completely and absolutely serious about it. And perhaps even more incredibly, eventually it actually works.
    • Yuuichi from Kanon uses a variant on this line towards Sayuri after tasting her boxed lunch.
    • In Angelic Layer, Misaki's aunt and best friend, Tamayo, demand she marry them after she cooks for them.
    • In the Excel Saga manga, Iwata's first words to Ropponmatsu 1 are "Will you marry me?". Being a robot, she thinks he's serious.
    • In K-On!, Ritsu tells Yui she'll marry Ui when she realizes how good of a housewife she is.
    • In the manga version of Chrono Crusade, Shader says this to Fiore after Fiore serves everyone a (delicious) breakfast. She seems to be joking, but considering the two's relationship...
    • Yotsuba&!: Yotsuba does this to Fuuka, after finding out that she knows how to make a cake.
    • In the Spiral manga, upon tasting the delicious meal Ayumu cooked them (while calculating calories and nutritional value), Rio and Hiyono don't say out loud but simultaneously think, with sparkles and Love Bubbles, "I want to be his bride" (or, in the Yen Press version, "I want to make him my bride.")

    Comic Books

    • Y: The Last Man. Upon learning that that a captain named her ship after the one in Sirens of Titans, Yorick instantly proposes to her.
    • Hercules proposes to Namora when she impresses him by employing a Groin Attack on a giant. He means it a little more seriously than he should have.

    Film

    • Batman, when reporter Alexander Knox meets Vicki Vale, who's pretty much the only other person who believes Batman exists and wants to help him:

    Knox: Vale, will you marry me?
    Vicki: No.
    Knox: Will you buy me lunch?
    Vicki: ...Maybe.
    Knox: I eat light!

      • To be fair, that might have less to do with Geeky Turn On, and more to do with the fact that Vicki Vale is played by Kim Basinger.
    • In Amazing Grace, a historical movie about ending the slave trade in England, abolitionist William Wilberforce is introduced to future wife Barbara Spooner by his cousin. Turns out she has long supported abolition and gets him to talk about his (failed) attempt at getting slavery outlawed. He later tells his cousin that they're both "prone to making rash decisions," and they marry a week later, and she convinces him to pick up the fight once more.[1]
    • In The Village, Lucius and Ivy become engaged via a conversation where she asks if he will dance with her at their wedding.

    Literature

    • Non-geeky, Super Dickery example: In The Time Traveler's Wife, Henry says a variation on this after tasting the cooking of Clare's family's cook. Which is very weird, considering Clare's his fiancee at that point. Furthermore, he prefaces the statement by dramatically announcing "I have seen my future," which makes Clare worry he's about to tell her family about the time traveling.
    • In Kerry Greenwood's Murder in the Dark, Mr. Butler compliments the Templars' housekeeper by saying, "If I weren't already married..." (She's both cool in a crisis and a very good pastry cook.)
    • In Robert A. Heinlein's The Number of the Beast, Zeb asks Deety to marry him the first time they meet. They get married.
    • Dorothy L. Sayers' Lord Peter Wimsey sometimes used this gambit to flatter older women. In "The Queen's Square", he says to his dance partner that if he'd only had the luck to have been born earlier, he'd have married her. (She is much older than he is and is not offended.)
      • However, when he actually means it, ie proposing a Fourth Date Marriage to Harriet Vane, she at first doesn't believe him. (It takes several years and books before she finally realizes all those spontaneous proposals are deadly serious. Then she says yes.)
    • In Robert Ludlum's hilarious The Road to Omaha, main viewpoint character Sam Devereaux meets a beautiful fellow lawyer and more-or-less instantly falls in love, proposing immediately—as I recall, they hadn't even exchanged names yet. She's naturally appalled, but then just a few minutes later, something he says strikes her as so inspiring that she proposes to him.
    • When John of Rhodes learned how extensive Irene Macrembolitissa's personal library was (and the quality of the contents), "Marry me" was the first thing out of his mouth. She replied, "Not a chance, John. I know your type. You're just lusting after my books."

    Live-Action TV

    • A Running Gag on Arrested Development, used as a deflection whenever someone comments on Maeby's being too young to be a film executive.
    • The Friends episode "The One With The Worst Best Man Ever":

    Stripper: Look, I don't need to steal some stupid ring, all right? I make $1,600 a week doing what I do. Any of you guys make that?
    Chandler: Marry me?

    Mulder: Maybe you don't know what you're looking for.
    Scully: Like evidence of conjury or the black arts or shamanism, divination, Wicca or any kind of pagan or neo-pagan practice? Charms, cards, familiars, bloodstones, or hex signs or any of the ritual tableaux associated with the occult, Santeria, Voudoun, Macumba, or any high or low magic?
    Mulder: Scully?
    Scully: Yes?
    Mulder: Marry me.
    Scully: I was hoping for something a little more helpful.

    • The more pathetic variety occurs in Peep Show, where Mark, desperate not to go through with it on his wedding day, asks a shop assistant he sees reading his favourite history book. She says no, of course, and he gets married as planned. It doesn't last.
    • Britta and Jeff have one of these in the first episode of Community.
    • River Phoenix guest-starred on an episode of Family Ties as a student who was tutoring Alex (Michael J. Fox). Alex's younger sister Jennifer (Tina Yothers) came into the kitchen and spoke to them briefly before leaving, with Phoenix's character staring after her and declaring, "I've just met the mother of my children!" Alex was understandably freaked out.

    Theater

    • In the final scene of the Stephen Sondheim musical Merrily We Roll Along, Mary compliments upstart composer Frank on his music, to which he replies "I've just met the girl I'm going to marry." This, in classic Sondheimian fashion, has a dark edge, since we've already seen that Mary will fall in love with Frank, who will remain oblivious to her feelings through two disastrous marriages to other women.
    • A version of this occurs in Thornton Wilder's classic Our Town, George and Emily begin a conversation with how George has become all stuck-up, and are engaged by the end of it. Unlike most of these, the question is never directly asked or answered, but everyone knows what's happened. George ends it by saying "Well. I guess this is a pretty important conversation we've been having."

    Video Games

    • In Ratchet and Clank 3, Ratchet says this to Sasha on realising he'll be provided with the latest game console set-up.
    • In Destroy All Humans 2, when Natalya tells Crypto about how she snuck out of an East German soccer match with a West German jersey on, Crypto pulls this on her. She replies, "No, but thanks for asking."
    • Subverted in Touhou Project: Story of Eastern Wonderland, as the "proposal" is actually a challenge.

    Meira: I am Meira. I have come to take the Hakurei (powers).
    Reimu: Boy, that was quick... but okay!

    Web Comics

    Sandra : Cloud, will you marry me?
    Cloud: Probably.

    Web Original

    Real Life

    • Something related: Fans of Lucky Star have reportedly flocked to the shrine that was the model for the one seen in the anime and left plaques with wishes like "Konata is my wife" on them.
    • Tom Welling, who plays Clark on Smallville apparently was asked this in all seriousness by a fan he'd never met. He was a bit disturbed.
    • Approximately half of the YouTube comments for Sarah Haskins's snarky segment "Target Women" are from men (or women) posting "Marry Me" or a variation.
    • This post from "Overheard in New York".
    1. ↑ Most of this is probably artistic license, since the real Barbara Spooner was said to have no interest in her husband's political career
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