Television Version: This suave man smoothly places an engagement ring in his girlfriend champagne glass as she goes to the bathroom. She returns and as they raise their glasses to toast, the camera pans in to show the ring as she would and she screams with excitement as she knows that he is prepared to ask her to marry her. He drops to one knee and easily retrieves the beautiful diamond solitaire from the fluted glass, softly takes her hand and romantically states, “Will you marry me?" She says, “Yes!" The entire restaurant raises to their feet and cheers the couple as they embrace.Real Life: You fumble trying to quickly get the ring into the glass, wiping up the splash so she will not notice. She returns talking about something disgusting that she found in the ladies room, quickly grabs her glass and takes a sip. As you try to stop her, it is too late and she has swallowed the ring. She is now choking and you race to try and assist her. The restaurant raises to their feet, but this time in fear that she may choke to death. You are able to retrieve the ring, but you two get to spend a night at the emergency room to evaluate the damage done to her esophagus and mouth from the ring. You both look a mess and will have quite a story to tell about your engagement. But, I don’t think this is exactly the story you were planning.This is just one example of how life does NOT imitate television. It is easy for everything to go right when there is a script for both people and you can rehearse until it all goes right. For the rest of us, those little disclaimers on stunt shows should also apply to the sit-coms - “Do not try this at home." It is not that we are incapable of making a great showing that can bring tears to her eyes or a crowd to their feet. It is that we should not try to re-create the situations exactly in the way that we see them.You have every right to make an amazing proposal and I even ENCOURAGE you to do so. I do, however, ask that you consider using the T.I.P. method and not the T.V. method. The T.I.P. stands for Thoughtful, Intimate, and Planned. This will allow you to make a plan and create a proposal that is specifically matched to you and your mate, not the millions of television viewers that are tuning to the channel. When you try to recreate a televised proposal, you also do yourself a disservice and don’t allow your own creativity and the personal touch that you could make to create a situation even better than fiction. When you develop a plan specifically with you two in mind, you can expand beyond what can occur in the three to five minutes that a 30 minute sit-com can devote to the proposal scene.