My Fake Engagement
Me and my partner Alex have been dating for 6 months now, and today they finally proposed… an idea to me. I was having trouble thinking of a fake story to share as an assignment for my social media class. Their idea was that I would put on my story that we were engaged. We both found the idea funny and wanted to see the reactions of our friends when they found out.
Once posted, it took all of 30 seconds for a response to come through. The message being from a family friend who simply congratulated me. I had a few other people congratulate me throughout the day. After each I did explain what was actually going on to avoid any more confusion. The responses I found more interesting were those from my closest friends.
Two friends were extremely excited. It was very sweet to see how happy they were for me and I felt bad it was all a lie. Once I explained it was a little sad but honestly I am glad to bring any hope into my friends lives given all that’s been happening lately. One of these two friends took it really well and she even congratulated me on my faux wedding. This was as far as the positive comments ever got. Many other responses are more confused or surprised than anything.
One friend gave the response “Holy shit! What?!?”, which I feel is the appropriate reaction to this news out of nowhere. After all, Alex and I have not been dating for long. Another friend responded with “holy crap congratulations”. The response was still congratulatory but definitely was surprised at the sudden news. It was fun to see how everyone responded, but generally my friends were all happy for me.
An unexpected aspect of all the responses was that nearly all of them immediately believed my story. Only one person knew it was fake. My Snapchat story was a picture of a hand with an engagement ring off google, and complete with a caption that we were engaged. I didn’t think it was the most believable story. It worries me that almost no one questioned me about it. I am not an impulsive person, and I thought most would know me better than that. I do see why no one said anything though. Calling someone’s engagement fake is not something you just want to say without knowing for certain.
Overall this was an interesting experience that I will never do again if I can. There was a lot of anxiety involved with lying to all my friends about something so big. I was glad when it was over. I hope one day Alex and I will get engaged and married and live a long happy life together, but that is all for later. For now I am happy with us how we are. We definitely need more time and money before making a decision as big as this.
