to not understand people announcing that they're 'Getting Engaged'.

[atthewelles]

I mean, either you've agreed between you that you want to get married or you haven't. Tellling everyone that you're 'going to get engaged at Christmas' or that 'we're going to Paris to get engaged' doesn't really make sense. Surely its more exciting to wait until you have the ring and then make a general announcement that you 'are engaged' instead of letting everyone know in advance and then expecting them to get excited and ooh and aah when you appear with a diamond flashing on your finger.

I'm not giving out about it, I just don't understand why people want to take the excitement and surprise out of the occasion like this.

LaQueen then we will have to agree to disagree, I just don't think it's very nice

There's an expression in Ireland (probably in the UK too) 'engaged to wait' which is often used to describe engagements that seem to be going on forever with no wedding in sight.

Just giggling at the irony of the flouncers corner - members annoucing they're going to flounce :)

Ellie you're pretty vile tbh, calling someone's engagement pathetic and meaningless. Quite a harsh personal attack there.

What made me laugh was the number of posters saying "I haven't read that other thread but they are all awful and jealous and vile people who are being really mean to you".

I'm a little surprised by Flouncer's Corner, as it seems to be the one place on MN where it is okay to start a thread about a thread.

And it's unfortunate that so many people who hadn't read this thread were critical of everyone on it, because for the most part it really hasn't been an attack on anyone else.

I'm actually very sorry that someone has been upset enough to post about it elsewhere and consider leaving MN, because I really don't believe that was the intention of the thread.

And in fact her own circumstances were not exactly the ones being described at the beginning of this thread. Her engagement seems to have been a quiet but open secret they decided to celebrate and formalise abroad, which is vastly different to the original discussion about the point when a couple who agree to marry become engaged/people who spend six months telling everyone from the milkman to his dog that they are 'getting engaged' on X date.

Having read back, I think Ellie has had a bit of a rough deal herself here. She didn't actually say that the other posters engagement was meaningless because they went to Paris to swap the ring, she said the statement "we are going to Paris to get engaged" was meaningless to her because she would consider the couple already engaged by that point. I realise I've paraphrased slightly, but on reading back I really don't think she was calling an actual engagement meaningless.

I've just read back over Ellie's posts Fake and you're absolutely right. She did use the word 'meaningless' in the way you described and not in the insulting way that has been implied.
Her use of the word 'pathetic' was not fair but she used it in the heat of the moment and came back and said that she should not have used it.

I really do think that a totally distorted impression of this thread has been presented over on flouncy bouncy corner and if you look back at some of YOS's posts (or indeed some of the posts on 'the other thread') they are just as unpleasant as the ones YOS is complaining about.

Seriously, if you dish it out you have to be prepared to take it as well.

I wonder how many posters that start threads in flouncers corner actually leave mn for good.

Imagine if you started a thread over there and no one came back and said 'aaaw. Don't go.' And there you were, all ready to flounce.

If by the 'engagement ceremony/stage setting' you mean a situation which has been engineered and arranged by both people in order to say ' we got engaged on the stroke of midnight at the top of Mount Everest aren't we romantic' or whatever then yes, I'd say that was pretty meaningless & pointless, because in order for both people to be aware those plans are happening means you're already engaged

I said it before, but you could just say, we're engaged, and we're off on holiday/for a lovely day trip etc to celebrate, and still have that nice experience, but it'd be a bit more real, as a celebration, rather than pretending :)

I agree LaQueen, I hate it when people goad other people into a response and then take umbrage when that response comes.

Sorry, x posted. Agreeing with your second last post.

There's a fine line between direct and being nasty for the sake of it.

And all the this is AIBU what do you expect, doesn't do a lot for the site IMO.

But we're talking about this particular incident usual where some of us think a minor incident has been blown up out of all proportion and where a poster who was quite happy to come into the thread all guns blaring then took umbrage and started another thread in Flouncers Corner talking about how horrible everyone on this thread was. A bit unfair, don't you think?

Mind you, its been great publicity for Flouncers Corner which most people didn't seem to know existed. We'll all be over there now flouncing around and drying each others tears.

I think most people know FC exists except for the ones that never leave AIBU

Well, I didn't and I also post on the food threads, the book threads and baby names.
The traffic there seems to be quite light but that might change now.