ABOUT WOMEN
Really romantic rendezvous with Mr. Right can bring bliss

By Tanya Bricking
Advertiser Staff Writer

One paradox about women is that they can hate sappy endings to romantic comedies and love the New York Times' Sunday "Vows" column that profiles a couple's quest for wedded bliss.

Or maybe that's my own personal paradox, but it's helping me rationalize becoming One Of Those Women — the hopeless romantic kind I used to mock.

My transformation must have started some time ago. But what clinched it was my first day back at work after vacation, when my beau called me at the office and asked me to go to dinner at Buona Sera, a cute little Italian place in my neighborhood that has Chianti bottles hanging all over the walls.

I got home from work and waited and waited for him to pick me up. I couldn't imagine what was taking so long. (Turns out he was at the restaurant enlisting the help of the wait staff to find a particular bottle, but I'm getting ahead of myself.)

When you order Chianti there, they bring you markers to decorate the wicker on the bottle, then they hang up your work of art. The last time we were there, we decorated a bottle but hid our sides from each other with a napkin. My guy said the next time we were there we could look for our creation.

So he finally arrived for our date, and when we walked in the restaurant, the hostess seated me directly across the room from our prominently displayed bottle. "Hey, there it is!" I pointed, suggesting we go look at it. He was quick to reply that we should wait until after dinner. I obliged.

He was acting a little strange throughout our meal. I asked him why he wasn't eating anything. He did manage to help me polish off a bottle of wine and hide his side of the bottle from me as he wrote something on it. He said after dinner we could show each other our sides of both bottles.

I should have been expecting something big when he practically tackled a waiter to reclaim our old bottle, hanging across from me. But I was just thinking, "Why is he taking that down? You're supposed to leave it on the wall."

Then he brought it to our table and revealed what he had written three months earlier: "Sitting across from me is the woman I will marry. I love you." It took me a minute to see that the bottle had a diamond ring tied to it. Then he turned around the new bottle, which said: "I love you so much. You have changed my life. Say YES."

Then he bent down on one knee, and I'm not sure exactly what he said. I know this: He proposed, I said yes, and everyone clapped.

An older woman at the next table even complimented him, saying it was great to see that young men still got down on their knee to propose. I thought it was pretty cool, too. That kind of love is all anyone could ever want.

And that is how I became One Of Those Women, a self-proclaimed hopeless romantic, and all the better for it.

Tanya Bricking writes about relationships for The Advertiser. Reach her at tbricking@honoluluadvertiser.com or 525-8026.