The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1918-01-03
DOR0TMY DIX TALKS
BY DOROTHY DIX
Worlds Highest Paid Woman Writer
HOW to Pop the question.

How to Pop the Question.
I have.a letter from a bashful swain
who asks me for the formula for a
marriage proposal
He says that he is very much in love
with a girl and is anxious to ask her
to marry him, but that he does not
know in which words to induce her
to go over the top with him and en-
gage in the great battle of matrimony-
You can't answer question IKE
that categoricaIly. There is no cut
and-dried phrase in which a man can
pop the question as there is for intro
ducing people, or saying good nlgnt
after party. Each man is supposed
to be so inspired by the time, the
place and the CIR! that ne turns my
a poet and woos the lady of his heart
in language SO beautiful and 1mpasv
stoned that nobody but a deaf woman
would resist it.
That is the way men propose IN
novels and on the stage. Truth, alas,
compels us to admit that they do 1t
slightly differently in real life. In
actual experience a man approaches
his great moment with clammy hands
and cold feet; he stammers and CUR
! giles and chokes on his Adams apPle,
and bIurts out something that the
woman only knows is matrimonial
proposition because she has worked
/ him up to the Stratch.
One of the secrets that no man ever
tells is how he proposed to his wife.
To his dying day he is ashamed or
the way he muffed the ball. Neither
does the wife ever tell, because the
way her husband popped the question
| to her is the blightil.g disappointment
of her life. Ever since she could tod
die she had dreamed of having her
little romantic hour as Juliet and
when it came it wasn't pink moon
beams at all. 1t was corned beer ana
cabbage, which is good substantial
diet, but not a thing for your memory
ito gloat over the balance of your
existence.
| OF course, being a woman, and In
full sympathy with my sex on this
subject, 1 can but advise my CORE
spondent to pop the question to his
sweetheart in such a beautiful, ro-
mantle and poetic manner that she
will be proud to tell her great grand
children about it.
| However, that is just a concession
to woman's love of friiis and the
aesthetic. 1t is not a necessity. AS
cold matter of fact, what with the
high cost of living, the proneness OF
the modern man to s:destep the altar
and the depleted supply of matri-
monial timber, it doesn't make much
difference nowadays how a man pro-
poses, Just So he does it.
So go to it, son, in the first words
that come to you. They will more
than likely take the trick. And may
heaven bless you and preserve you.
Chevalier used to sing a charming
little cockney ditty in which the re-
frain was, "It wasn't what he said, it
was the parsty way he said 1t"
In popping the question the impor-
tant thing is not the thing a man says,
nor the way he says it, but when he
leo nj fc b0
great psychological factor in the case.
Every woman with grain of intel
Tligence in her head understands the
; value of time in dealing with men.
None but a fool woman would ever
ask a man for a new hat or tell him
the dry goods bill must be paid in the
awful fifteen minutes before dinner.
She would know that the announce
ment a man will take like a lamb
when he is rested and filled with food
and drink, he will meet like sore
headed bear when he is tired, cross
and hungry.
Women have likewise a chrono-
logical chart by which they can be
worked, but men have not bothered
to study it. If they did, not only
many a family row would be avoided
but there would be many more faTni-
lies. for many coy maiden's no
could be changed into yes if her
sutton had enough intelligence to ask
her at the propitiouS melting moment
For instance, I asked a bachelor girl
friend of mine why she did not marry
a certain highly eligible gentleman
who had been faithfully counting her
for years.
Because he hasn't got enough
sense to pop the question to me at
the right time" she replied. He in
variably proposes to me just as have
made a good business deal, or when 1
have on a new hat and dress and am
feeling fit and fine and ready to fight
the world for my own latch key. 50
1 say, no. but if he would only watch
my moods and strike me when things
have gone wrong at the office, or
when it has rained and my skirts are
limp and bedraggled. and all I want
is nice shoulder to cry on, why, I'd
say. yes and thank you, too"
Generally speaking. prosperity and
happiness turn woman's thoughts
away from matrimony, while misfor-
tune and sorrow incline her towards
it When she is pushing luck she
is sufficient to herself. When luck
is against her she feels the need of
someone to love her and a strong arm
on which to lean. Therefore. the
psychological moment in which to
propose to a woman is when she is
weepy; never when she is laughing
and gay.
so little appreciation of how womer
react to the hour and the place thai
they actually choose crowd in whicf
to pop the question. They will do II
over a mutton chop at midday in g
crowded restaurant, with waiter ano
, bus boy lowering in ear shot, and ye'
exnect a woman to say yes
Nothing but the feeling that such
proposal Is absolutely the last call te
the dining car can induce woman
to marry a man who offers her frief
potatoes with one hand and hear
with the other and who interrupts TIT
q recital of his deathless devotion b,
= recommending the salad dressing.
OF course such a man may be too
GOOD a thing to refuse. The woman
- NAV love him so well that she woult