Engaging Conversation

"Sae (left) said it while sober"

Gabrielle: Breakfast is served. Get em' [while] they're hot!
Victor Lang: Marry me?
Gabrielle: They're only toaster waffles.

— Desperate Housewives, "God, That's Good"

So you meet a member of your preferred gender for the first time and initiate a conversation. They might be a coworker, a friend of a friend, or even a stranger you're meeting in a trendy juice bar: in any case, it's a casual, low-key meeting. Things are going along smoothly when suddenly, in describing oneself, your new acquaintance says "I spend six hours a day editing TV Tropes."

You can hardly believe your ears: you spend seven hours a day on TV Tropes! After being told by your friends (both of them) that you have a problem, at last, you've found a kindred spirit! How do you express your glee at your mutual interests?

You ask them to marry you, right then and there.

Of course, you don't mean it. It's an exaggeration for comedic effect. In other words, you're only joking. In fact, if you feel compelled to say this right away upon meeting someone, you both are much more likely to become Platonic Life-Partners: tossing love and sex into the mix would overcomplicate what would otherwise be a close (and maybe occasionally sexy) friendship.

Or you do mean it and you're even more pathetic than either of your friends realized.

"I want to have your babies" is a frequent variation of the trope - preferably said by a man to a woman for extra silliness.

For this trope without the commitment, see Geeky Turn-On. If you actually do intend the proposal, it might lead to a Fourth-Date Marriage or at least be Love at First Sight.

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Examples:

Anime and Manga

• The Hidamari Sketch 4koma above. Hiro offers to make some soup for Miyako, who is feeling nauseous from the alcohol she accidentally drank. Miyako and Sae respond with dual Visible Silence followed by dual "Will you marry me?" The title of that 4koma is "Sae said it while sober".
• Raichou of Kyouran Kazoku Nikki does this to Pierre after tasting one of his desserts.
• In S.S. Astro Izumi said this to her fellow teacher after the food, much to the chagrin of Kaname, who really has a crush on her.
• In the Azumanga Daioh manga, Minamo jokingly asks to marry ten-year-old Chiyo when she learns Chiyo cooks her own meals.
• In Hayate the Combat Butler, a young Nagi says this to Isumi when she compliments her manga (a big thing for Nagi).
  • Ayumu also does this to Hinagiku... sort of.
  • Machina also does this to Maria when she makes him a hamburger.
• Mashiro of Bakuman。 accidentally asks his crush Mizuki to marry him while they are talking about their goals. She actually accepts, but only on the condition that they won't see each other until their goals are reached.
• Claire Stanfield from Baccano! is known to do this all the time. The difference is that, unlike anyone else here, he's completely and absolutely serious about it. And perhaps even more incredibly, eventually it actually works.
• Yuuichi from Kanon uses a variant on this line towards Sayuri after tasting her boxed lunch.
• In Angelic Layer, Misaki's aunt and best friend, Tamayo, demand she marry them after she cooks for them.
• In the Excel♡Saga manga, Iwata's first words to Ropponmatsu 1 are "Will you marry me?". Being a robot, she thinks he's serious.
• In K-On!, Ritsu tells Yui she'll marry Ui when she realizes how good a housewife she is.
• In the manga version of Chrono Crusade, Shader says this to Fiore after Fiore serves everyone a (delicious) breakfast. She seems to be joking, but considering the two's relationship...
• Yotsuba&! does this to Fuuka, after finding out that she knows how to make a cake.
• In the Spiral manga, upon tasting the delicious meal Ayumu cooked them (while calculating calories and nutritional value), Rio and Hiyono don't say out loud but simultaneously think, with sparkles and Love Bubbles, "I want to be his bride" (or, in the Yen Press version, "I want to make him my bride.")
• This is shown in a flashback in Future Diary, when 13-year-old classmates Yuno and dorky Yukiteru are both having trouble with a school assignment asking them about their dreams for the future. Yuki had been looking forward to going to see the stars with his parents, but they've just recently gotten divorced, and now it seems like he may never get that chance. To cheer him up, Yuno offers to go with him to the observatory instead, but Yuki says it's not the same since she isn't family. Yuno then suggests that she could be family if she married him. He brushes it off and jokingly agrees to get married when they're older, believing she was only kidding. She wasn't. It turns out the reason she was having trouble with the assignment was that she had accidentally killed her Abusive Parents. She had been all alone and unable to imagine any kind of future for herself, but the thought of marrying Yuki gave her something solid to fixate on and focusing on that kept her from completely giving in to despair. In the process, Yuki becomes a Living Emotional Crutch, and Yuno will do anything to make sure they can be together. ANYTHING.
• My Hero Academia: The hero named Joke typically greets Aizawa with "Marry me!" He always flatly turns her down, which she finds hilarious. While she always greets everyone with a joke (it's part of her Quirk), Aizawa is the only one who gets marriage proposals.
• One Piece introduces "Marriage Proposal" Lola in the Thriller Bark arc, a pirate captain who has asked about every man she meets to marry her and is turned down. Indeed, upon first meeting Luffy she asks him to marry her and he says no.

Comic Books

• Y: The Last Man - Upon learning that that a captain named her ship after the one in The Sirens of Titan, Yorick instantly proposes to her.
• Hercules proposes to Namora when she impresses him by employing a Groin Attack on a giant. He means it a little more seriously than he should have.
• Ms. Marvel (2014) gives us one by proxy, when Kamala is chaperoning Aamir and Tyesha on one of their not-dates and they noticed some brainwashed civilians.
  Kamala: What's wrong with their eyes? They're all...purple.
  Tyesha: "The Spice is life."
  Kamala: Did you just make a Dune reference?
  Tyesha: Maybe.
  Kamala: Please marry my brother.

Comic Strips

• The Adventures of Prudence Prim: Prudence and Dicky Dare fall in Love at First Sight at a party. After recruiting the hostess to help sneak Prudence away from her chaperoning aunts, Dicky proposes. The verse that captions the panel even comments on how quickly their relationship progresses from first meeting to love confession:
  She brought the two together, and they fell in love with speed!
  Oh never did a love affair at such a rate proceed!
  Dicky proposed within the hour! (You must admit, that's quick!)
  He said, "I love you, Prudy!" and she said, "I love you, Dick!"

Fanfiction

• In The Goddess and the Sky, Sora jokingly wishes that Belldandy would marry her after tasting the goddess's cooking. Unfortunately, it's interpreted as an actual wish by the system, and the two of them end up accidentally married.
• During the Skelter Bite arc of This Bites!, Jeremiah Cross first reveals his plans to use the Straw Hats and the combined Supernovas to purge Sabaody of all slavers, free the slaves, and potentially deal a killing blow to the slavery industry world-wide to Boa Sandersonia and Koala, both of whom are former slaves. Sandersonia goes nearly feral with lust, and has to be knocked unconscious by Koala to prevent her from completing her stated intention of sexually ravaging Cross right there on the table. Then Koala admits she's only somewhat less aroused and attracted than Sandersonia was, and quickly gets him to change the topic.

Film

• Batman (1989), when reporter Alexander Knox meets Vicki Vale, who's the only other person who believes Batman exists and wants to help him:
  Knox: Vale, will you marry me?
  Vicki: No.
  Knox: Will you buy me lunch?
  Vicki: ...Maybe.
  Knox: I eat light!
• In Amazing Grace, a historical movie about ending the slave trade in England, abolitionist William Wilberforce is introduced to future wife Barbara Spooner by his cousin. Turns out she has long supported abolition and gets him to talk about his (failed) attempt at getting slavery outlawed. He later tells his cousin that they're both "prone to making rash decisions," and they marry a week later, and she convinces him to pick up the fight once more. ^note Most of this is probably artistic license since the real Barbara Spooner was said to have no interest in her husband's political career.
• In The Village (2004), Lucius and Ivy become engaged via a conversation where she asks if he will dance with her at their wedding.

Literature

• Non-geeky, Superdickery example: In The Time Traveler's Wife, Henry says a variation on this after tasting the cooking of Clare's family's cook. Which is very weird, considering Clare's his fiancee at that point. Furthermore, he prefaces the statement by dramatically announcing "I have seen my future," which makes Clare worry he's about to tell her family about the time-traveling.
• In Kerry Greenwood's Murder in the Dark, Mr. Butler compliments the Templars' housekeeper by saying, "If I weren't already married..." (She's both cool in a crisis and a very good pastry cook.)
• In Robert A. Heinlein's The Number of the Beast, Zeb asks Deety to marry him the first time they meet. They get married. (The Geeky Turn-On here is that his full name is Zebediah John Carter and hers is Dejah Thoris Burroughs. Well, that and that they're both very much Heinlein Heroes.)
• Dorothy L. Sayers' Lord Peter Wimsey series:
  • Lord Peter sometimes uses this gambit to flatter older women. In "The Queen's Square", he says to his dance partner that if he'd only had the luck to have been born earlier, he'd have married her. (She is much older than he is and is not offended.)
  • However, when he actually means it, i.e. proposing to Harriet Vane during their first face-to-face conversation, she at first doesn't believe him. (It takes several years and books before she finally realizes all those spontaneous proposals are deadly serious. Then she says yes.)
• In Robert Ludlum's hilarious The Road to Omaha, main viewpoint character Sam Devereaux meets a beautiful fellow lawyer and more-or-less instantly falls in love, proposing immediately — as I recall, they hadn't even exchanged names yet. She's naturally appalled, but then just a few minutes later, something he says strikes her as so inspiring that she proposes to him.
• In the Belisarius Series, when John of Rhodes learns how extensive Irene Macrembolitissa's personal library is (and the quality of the contents), "Marry me" is the first thing out of his mouth. She replies, "Not a chance, John. I know your type. You're just lusting after my books."

Live-Action TV

• A Running Gag on Arrested Development, used as a deflection whenever someone comments on Maeby's being too young to be a film executive.
• The Friends episode "The One With The Worst Best Man Ever":
  Stripper: Look, I don't need to steal some stupid ring, all right? I make $1,600 a week doing what I do. Any of you guys make that?
  Chandler: Marry me?
• The X-Files:
  • From "Chinga":
    Mulder: Maybe you don't know what you're looking for.
    Scully: Like evidence of conjury or the black arts or shamanism, divination, Wicca or any kind of pagan or neo-pagan practice? Charms, cards, familiars, bloodstones, or hex signs or any of the ritual tableaux associated with the occult, Santeria, Voudoun, Macumba, or any high or low magic?
    Mulder: Scully?
    Scully: Yes?
    Mulder: Marry me.
    Scully: I was hoping for something a little more helpful.
  • From "Small Potatoes":
    Mulder: I have a theory. Do you want to hear it?
    Scully: Van Blundht somehow physically transformed into his captor then walked out the door leaving no one the wiser?
    Mulder: Hey Scully, should we be picking out china patterns or what?
• The more pathetic variety occurs in Peep Show, where Mark, desperate not to go through with it on his wedding day, asks a shop assistant he sees reading his favourite history book. She says no, of course, and he gets married as planned. It doesn't last.
• Britta and Jeff have one of these in the first episode of Community.
• River Phoenix guest-starred on an episode of Family Ties as a student who was tutoring Alex (Michael J. Fox). Alex's younger sister Jennifer (Tina Yothers) came into the kitchen and spoke to them briefly before leaving, with Phoenix's character staring after her and declaring, "I've just met the mother of my children!" Alex was understandably freaked out.

Theater

• In the final scene of the Stephen Sondheim musical Merrily We Roll Along, Mary compliments upstart composer Frank on his music, to which he replies "I've just met the girl I'm going to marry." This, in classic Sondheimian fashion, has a dark edge, since we've already seen that Mary will fall in love with Frank, who will remain oblivious to her feelings through two disastrous marriages to other women.
• A version of this occurs in Thornton Wilder's classic Our Town, George and Emily begin a conversation with how George has become all stuck-up, and are engaged by the end of it. Unlike most of these, the question is never directly asked or answered, but everyone knows what's happened. George ends it by saying "Well. I guess this is a pretty important conversation we've been having."
• In Hadestown, it certainly doesn't take long for Orpheus to decide he wants to marry Eurydice, a woman he's never spoken to before. Seriously:
  Orpheus: Come home with me.
  Eurydice: ...Who are you?
  Orpheus: The man who's gonna marry you. [beat] I'm Orpheus.

Video Games

• In Ratchet & Clank: Up Your Arsenal, Ratchet says this to Sasha on realising he'll be provided with the latest game console set-up.
• In Destroy All Humans! 2, when Natalya tells Crypto about how she snuck out of an East German soccer match with a West German jersey on, Crypto pulls this on her. She replies, "No, but thanks for asking."
• Subverted in Touhou Fuumaroku ~ the Story of Eastern Wonderland, as the "proposal" is actually a challenge.
  Meira: I am Meira. I have come to take the Hakurei (powers).
  Reimu: Boy, that was quick... but okay!
  • In crossover fangame Touhou Mother, Satori has this reaction to discovering that she can't read Mima's mind.
• Virion is introduced while doing this to Sully in Fire Emblem: Awakening. It really sets up his personality. Sully's initial response is to threaten to kick him in the face, but it is possible for them to get married.

Visual Novels

• The heroine of Steam Prison has met Eltcreed Valentine all of twice the first time he proposes marriage to her, at a point where the sum total of their acquaintance might possibly add up to about twenty minutes. He suggests it several more times over the course of his path, well before serious romantic feelings have grown between them.

Webcomics

• This Geek's World strip.
• This Ctrl+Alt+Del strip.
• Dominic Deegan's done it too.
  • Bonus points for both of them being female.
• Here's an Applegeeks comic featuring this.
• Fuzzy from Sam & Fuzzy used "Bear my children!" as a variant towards Andrea.
• Marry Me. Sort of. A fan of a pop star holds up a sign reading "marry me." Her reluctant friend holds it for her while she goes to the bathroom and his accidental proposal is accepted.
• Sandra from Sandra and Woo is "probably" serious about her proposal:
  Sandra: Cloud, will you marry me?
  Cloud: Probably.
  • Another example comes later on, complete with a flying tackle.
• In Dumbing of Age, here. Which is sort of a dark version of this trope, since Joyce doesn't realize that he slipped something into that drink.
• In Homestuck, the Author Avatar says this to Vriska after she finds him in the wreckage of an attack.
• Something*Positive—A variant in this strip, after some NSFW discussion.

Web Original

• Homestar Runner: In the Strong Bad Email "magic trick", Strong Bad gets an email from "Agnes in sweden!" asking him to do a magic trick, like sawing Homestar in half.
  Strong Bad: You're a girl. From Sweden. And you want me to take a saw to Homestar Runner. Um, I think we might need to get married, Agnes.
• This Not Always Right entry features 2 Star Trek fans, one of which pretends to propose to the other after exchanging only a few sentences of dialog. The person who submitted the entry was the one being proposed to. They quickly exit the conversation.
• In the RAD review, the raised Catholic Nostalgia Critic was given the "apology" of "What would Jesus do?", and so immediately wanted to jump the other person's bones. "Do me!"

Western Animation

• In My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic, Daring Do intentionally invokes this against her arch-enemy Ahuizotl when they are fighting each other over a magic ring in "Daring Don't".
  Ahuizotl: The ring, Daring Do! Give it to me!
  Daring Do: Now Ahuizotl, you know I love you, but I can't give you the ring till I've properly proposed.
• In the Capitol Critters episode "If Loving You is Wrong", Jammet asks Violet the hamster to marry him after seeing that she loves unhealthy food just as much as he does.

Real Life

• Something related: Fans of Lucky Star have reportedly flocked to the shrine that was the model for the one seen in the anime and left plaques with wishes like "Konata is my wife" on them.
• Tom Welling, who plays Clark on Smallville, apparently was asked this in all seriousness by a fan he'd never met before. He was a bit disturbed.
• By contrast, Maria Sharapova's reaction to a similar proposal was more graceful.
• Approximately half of the YouTube comments for Sarah Haskins's snarky segment "Target Women" are from men (or women) posting "Marry Me" or a variation.

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