Then there’s the cost of the actual ring and what has become an unreasonable social norm that a man is expected to spend two or three months of his salary on the thing. I am not alone when I ask, who came up with this crap?

But a man doesn’t want to be cheap, because: A. He wants to make his future wife happy; and, sometimes more importantly, B. Everyone is going to be looking at that ring and judging him on it.

The Permission
If a man wants to be traditional, asking permission of the parents is another stressful hoop to jump through. Considering that you’re asking to take away their little girl, this conversation can be almost as heavy as the proposal itself. (When I, your humble author, asked my fiancé’s dad for permission, we were both drunk—which helped take the edge off.)

The Moment
Besides the need to make it special for you and the rest of the world that will hear about it, another thing that makes proposing stressful is the thought that the woman might say no. Sure, it’s 99 percent certain she’ll give the right answer, but a man never knows if she’ll change her mind in the moment when the reality of actually marrying his sorry ass hits her. “That one percent chance counts,” says Steve, 31, who planned an elaborate proposal evening including a limo, dinner and special stop at a romantic spot to help make it an offer his now-wife couldn’t refuse.