The Marriage Proposal

As a 23 year old, adventure seeking guy living in San Diego, I make it a point to have as many adventures as possible, and keep spontaneity as high as possible. Crazy things happen to me all the time and I love them!....usually. Normally I expect the unexpected.

Well I didn't expect the recent marriage proposal I received.

Now before all of you ladies freak out and start sending me messages about how desperately you love me and how you can't believe this is happening, hear me out! I guess I should probably ease your souls right now. I declined.

Now for the story behind this.

Through my crazy network of friends, I happen to know a LOT of Brazilians. In fact, most of them would not like this post because they like to the "business arrangements" I'm going to discuss pretty hush hush.

Well it turns out many of the "single" Brazilians around, are not really single. They live live the single life, yet they are married!

I think you can see where this is going.

They view marriage as a "business arrangement." Man gets Tax benefits and possibly some bribe money, woman gets green card, and everythings peachy.

So the other day, I'm at my buddy's house, and he happens to have two female Brazilian roommates. I've been there quite a few times, so I know both of them. They're sort of friends "by default." I would never call them to hang out, but I always chat them up and make them laugh when I'm over.

Anyways, we're all hanging out while I wait for my buddy to get ready, and one of the girls whose name I won't mention, drops this little morsel conversation on me:

Her: "So Arun, what's your job again?"
Me: (explaining my career endeavors to here)
Her: "Oh that's great! So you like your work?"
Me: (not yet seeing where this is going) "Yea, it's great!"
Her: "Well what do you think about marriage?"
Me: "Uhhh, well I think it's good for people who are ready for it."
Her: "Would you consider yourself ready?"
Me: (getting uncomfortable) "uh...no no no."
Her: "Well what do you think of Marrying a friend to say, help them out"
Me: (speechless at the realization of what's happening)
Her: (explaining all her reasoning then ending with:) "You are a good guy and I think I can trust you."

Then came the words

Her: "Would you marry me?"

Inside my head I'm thinking "HOLY MOTHER OF MARY! What the Hell is going on!? There is no bloody way I'm marrying ANYONE, let alone YOU who I don't have any sort of relationship with!!!"

What I actually said was "Uhhh, well I wouldn't really feel comfortable..."
Her interjecting: " Oh! Don't say No yet! We might be able to reach an 'agreement!'"
Me: "No, I really don't think so."
Her: "Well think about it, and if you know any really good guys who might be interested, would you ask for me?"
Me: "Sure"

What I was really thinking was, "No way! I'm not gonna go around asking my friends if they want to get married to a girl they don't even know for a shady business deal!"

Suffice to say, me and my buddy got the hell out of there FAST!

My friend (he's Brazilian) later told me that for the "agreement" she mentioned, going rate is about 4,000 - 6,000 dollars.

I don't know what my price would be for a phony marriage, but it sure as hell isn't 4-6 grand.

Things have gotten back to normal with those girls now (or as normal as they can) but I know if I ever really wanted to, I could be married within a day.

This gives the term "fall back option" a whole new meaning!

Ladies of the world. I know this was a close call, but fear not! You haven't lost me yet.