Why DO needy men always try to steal the limelight?
Ok, THIS has got to stop. I know it’s hot in Rio and all those caipirinhas can quite turn a fellow’s head. But can you gents please give the PDAs (public displays of affection) a rest?
First, it was the turn of Chinese diver, Qin kai, who, shortly after his girlfriend of six years, He Zi, had been awarded silver for the women’s 3m springboard on Sunday, got down on bended knee and, with due solemnity, extended a little red velvet box in her direction.
At first she didn’t quite know where to put herself. Then she smiled, shakily, and nodded her head cautiously.
Perhaps she couldn’t quite believe that, at her moment of greatest glory, her boyfriend was stealing the limelight.
No wonder the poor girl burst into tears. Allegedly of joy. But one wonders.
Then came the turn of British dressage rider, Charlotte Dujardin, whose task of getting her gelding Valegro to prance improbably around the ring on its tippitoes would have already been hard enough without the added distraction of the other man in her life, fiance Dean Golding, gesticulating wildly from the sidelines with ‘Can we get married now?’ emblazoned across his chest.
DujARDIN took gold for the third time — an unprecedented feat for a woman in her field, but one that was somewhat overshadowed by Golding thrusting himself impatiently into the limelight.
He elbowed the noble steed out of the way and posed for photographers with his arm clamped proprietorially around his wife-to-be.
Can you imagine the uproar if a woman had attempted to muscle in on her man’s moment of triumph like that? But naturally, because Dujardin is female, the world’s media pronounced it all a great romantic triumph.
Forgive me for being the bad fairy here, but all I can say is: pass the Laura Trott sick bag.
It’s not just that public marriage proposals are always — always — a no-no. Whether in front of a worldwide TV audience of billions, during half-time at the football, in front of friends and relatives at New Year or with a giant banner hung over the M1, ambushing someone like that is just not on.
Quite aside from the fact that it gives them very little option but to say yes, it’s one of those overblown romantic gestures that, while ostensibly designed to please and flatter the recipient, in fact just allows the perpetrator to indulge in the worst kind of emotional showing off.
Look at me, look at me, it says. I’m so romantic, I’m so in love, I’m prepared to shout it from the rooftops of Rio. I, I, I.
Except it’s not supposed to be about you. It’s supposed to be about the other person. Especially if they are basking in the limelight of the single greatest achievement of their lives.
In fairness to the chaps, the Olympic ladies seem curiously willing to indulge the emotional neediness of their menfolk.
No sooner had Helen Glover powered her way to another awesome gold in the rowing, than she was rushing over to smooch fiance Steve Backshall and reassure him that: ‘Now I’ve got a wedding to plan.’
As if that were what truly mattered when surely the lump of gold round her neck was more significant at that moment than the one destined for her finger.
It’s not that I doubt these fellows’ intentions. I’m sure Dujardin’s fiance truly loves her. That is precisely why he ought not to have detracted from her hard-won victory by doing the emotional equivalent of naked star jumps.
Note, he did not say ‘Can we get married’ but ‘Can we get married now?’
That ‘now’ introducing a note of exasperation. Now can we be married? Now, if you’ve quite finished messing around on that horse. Now, can we have less of the Olympic heroine and more of the housewife.
If I were her, I’d stick with the horse.