Know the man you are dating.

There are some men who are traditionally intractable, preferring to be the one who proposes to his girlfriend.

This is a man who has conservative bona fides.

Do you have a conservative boyfriend?

If you do, he would prefer proposing to you instead.

It’s not that it isn’t reasonable to propose to a man, it is more so that a conservative man places greater weight on who proposes, looking at it as his traditional role to be the one to propose.

Assuming you have dated each other for a significant amount of time, establishing strong rapport, it’s unlikely he turns down your proposal.

That isn’t a worry.

The worry is in how he handles the proposal.

Although you want the moment to be special, he is going to find it hard to keep a smile on his face as you get on one knee with ring in hand.

It’s especially worse if you propose to him in public.

A public proposal by his woman is off-putting to a conservative man.

He fears that such a public spectacle puts him in the crosshairs of judgmental people who are wondering why he wasn’t the one who proposed to you.

Although he is polite as you do it and accepts your proposal, he won’t be all that happy once you two are in private and he gets to air his grievances about the proposal.

Again, it’s not so much that you have to worry about getting a refusal from a conservative boyfriend, it’s more so that the moment won’t be anywhere near as special as you want it to be upon proposing to him.

Take heed of the man he is beforehand.

Is he conservative?

With a conservative man, you are better off waiting on him to propose to you.

A boyfriend who is liberal or progressive won’t have an issue with getting a proposal from you, whether it be in private or in public.

He doesn’t think it unreasonable in the slightest.

He applauds it, looking at it as yet another great sign that gender roles in modern day society are no longer bound in draconian chains from the old days.

With a guy like this, he gets so excited about being proposed to and the positive message it signifies in terms of the equality of genders, he is telling every coworker he encounters at work the next day about it, including the janitor.

Then, there is the guy who is in the middle in terms of his politics and morals.

He has a mix of progressive and conservative viewpoints.

This one is trickier.

Although he is open to the idea of being proposed to, he prefers the intimacy of a private setting.

If it were to be done in public, he would much rather you do it amid family and friends in lieu of strangers.

This means that a public proposal at a busy stadium, fountain or restaurant, a la your favorite romance movies, is a big no-no.