On the 30th of November I asked Shorty to marry me. It was a surprise I had been planning for months. A surprise that only a couple of her close friends knew about: Angela and Ringo. And the only reason why I had to let them in on the secret was so that they could help me secretly find out Shorty’s ring size. Leading up to the actual proposal I was thinking really hard for ideas. My Dad never understood it though. He always thought proposals should be simple… just ask a question over dinner or something and that’s enough. When I told him how I wanted to do a surprise and do something a little special, he shook his head and said “Young people these days…”.
I thought really hard about how to propose. Even watched like a hundred YouTube videos to see how other people did it. There were the really simple ones like this… (that ended up failing).
And really elaborate ones like this.
First I had to think of a place. Some of my friends did it while on holiday, at a beach resort or even at the Eiffel Tower in Paris. But I decided against it. I thought that since Shorty and I met in KL and have spent most of our relationship in KL…. I should propose to her in KL. Plus I think we’re simple. We’re not very romantic to each other and we both like simple things. One thing we both love doing though… is making each other laugh. So whatever proposal I did had to at least try… to make her laugh.
One day I was discussing proposal ideas with Angela and she gave me an idea. She said since Audrey loves all these meme or 9Gag/Reddit kind of stuff, maybe I should give her a picture of the Y U NO GUY that said something like this.
That gave me an idea. It’s true. Shorty and I both love all these memes. So I thought that instead of just having one picture, maybe I’ll tell a story with her favourite memes. I quickly put a plan together for the 30th of November.
The Day Came
On the 30th of November I got Tze, Jam and Ringo to ask Shorty out for dinner at Neroteca; a restaurant we frequent a lot. I wasn’t supposed to go for the dinner. I told her that I had plans with my other friends, Thean and Wilson. So while she was on the way to the restaurant, I was waiting at home with my friends.
I had never been so nervous before. I had done all sorts of things. I’ve given speeches to hundreds of people and been on many TV interviews and all those things never got me nervous anymore. The thought of proposing to Shorty though… made my heart beat so fast I thought it was going to burst out of my chest. It wasn’t because I was afraid she would say “NO”. I mean I was fairly confident she would say “YES”. But perhaps I knew this was something I was only going to be able to do once in my life… so I had to do it well.
Once Shorty sat down at the restaurant table, Ringo WhatsApped me to tell me that she was there. My friends and I left for the restaurant quickly. When we got there, the camera crew I had engaged to record this memory was waiting for me. They told me that they already had some of their crew hidden among the patrons in the restaurant filming what was about to happen (The video is still being edited today. It was actually just meant to be kept by Shorty and I for memory’s sake so I’m not sure yet if we’ll post it online when it’s done but will check with my fiancee :)).
The crew set me up with a mic and along with Thean and Wilson, I walked towards the restaurant. I reached the glass door of the restaurant and waited there till she noticed me through the glass. When she did, she first gave me a surprised look (because she thought I was out with my friends), followed by a big smile and a wave. I took a deep breath and then took out some signs I had made the week before.
Neither Shorty or I or her friends had actual photos of me showing the signs because we were all too caught up with the whole thing so the best I can do is show you what those signs looked like.
The following were the exact order of the signs I showed her that day (it’s a bit geeky and you may not understand some of the slides unless you’re really into internet memes but if you want to know more of the meaning of each one… check out knowyourmeme.com)
After this sign I waited for Shorty to nod (or shake her head for that matter). Fortunately, she nodded and with a sigh or relief I then showed her this sign.
What she didn’t know then was that being a boy scout before and living by the motto of “Always Be Prepared”, I had printed another sign just in case she said NO. It was the “forever alone” face.
Anyway after I showed her the successkid.jpg sign (the one where she said YES), I opened the glass door and walked into the restaurant. She stood up from her table then and in tears she asked me “Are you serious? Real wan or not? Real wan or not?”.
I gave her the bouquet of flowers I had bought just a few hours ago then I got down on my knee.Then I presented the ring to her. I was so nervous my hand was shaking.
I had prepared a speech in my mind on what to say to her when I was down on my knee but I failed to execute it. I was so nervous I ended up mumbling something which I can’t remember what exactly till today… except that it ended with a “I love you and I want to take care of you for the rest of my life”. Or something like that.
I then took the ring and put it on her ring finger… only to realize that the size both Ringo and Angela gave me was wrong. It was too big for her. So she wore it on her middle finger instead which fit better.
We kissed and hugged. When we were done we looked around us and all her friends were in tears. I looked at my friends too and they too looked like they wanted to cry but they forced themselves to cry MACHO tears. We stood there with everyone staring at us for a while then we said “Ok… what happens now?” and everyone laughed.
The answer to my question was… we all then sat down for dinner together with my close friends and hers.
Till that moment, both of us hadn’t tweeted a single word about our proposal yet but our friends did. So our phones were beeping with people on Twitter asking us if it was really true. We spent the next few minutes reading the tweets and finally tweeted to confirm… that yes… I asked Shorty to marry me (and she said yes).
So that everyone was how I asked Audrey to marry me.
It was one of the happiest moments of my life…. and it was the beginning of the life of a Fatty and a Shorty.
Two very imperfect people… who’re perfect for each other.
You can read Shorty’s version here. Our versions differ a bit in sequence of events because we remember some things differently. 🙂
PS: Thanks to Mimi, Thean, Angie, Rina, Wilson, Angela, Ringo, Jam and Tze for helping me put this together.
Timothy Tiah – Co-Founder of Colony, Kuala Lumpur Co-Working Space