Woman rejects boyfriend's heartfelt Hawaii proposal for not being 'grand'— ends up regretting it

A man on Reddit, u/Axelbarillas, was overjoyed to propose to his girlfriend during their trip to Hawaii, carefully planning the moment to surprise her. However, when the time came, his girlfriend, who had envisioned a more elaborate proposal, rejected it, feeling it didn’t meet her expectations. Despite the intimate setting and heartfelt intentions, she turned him down. Little did she know, she would later regret her decision.

The 21-year-old man began his emotional recounting with context: "For context, "My girlfriend and I have been together for six years, and over Thanksgiving weekend I took her on a weeklong trip to Hawaii with the intention of proposing to her." He also mentioned that he had already spoken to her parents, asked for their blessing, and even showed them the engagement ring he had bought for their daughter prior to the trip. While the couple had discussed marriage previously, the issue arose when the woman expected a grand, Instagram-worthy proposal—complete with large "MARRY ME" letters on a beach and a bed of rose petals. The man, however, explained, "I wouldn't have the resources to plan it for a trip to somewhere we've never been, especially because we booked everything as a last-minute vacation just five days prior after she sent me videos of people vacationing in Hawaii."

He continued, "I planned to propose to her on the day we arrived. I carried the ring in my pocket all day waiting for a good opportunity to ask her. However, we had some completely unnecessary arguments, and I decided to postpone because I didn't want to do it after a bitter day." The following day, he planned to try again at sunset, but things still didn’t go as planned. The arrangements were far from what she had envisioned, so they ended up going out for a regular dinner and drinks instead of the memorable proposal he had hoped for.

But the man didn’t want to wait any longer, so he convinced his girlfriend to go for a night walk on the beach. "As I started to get on my knees and reach my pocket for the ring, she stopped me, saying, 'I hope you're not about to propose to me right now. This isn't what I expected.' My heart dropped, I got back up and stood speechless before starting to walk back to the hotel," he wrote. The moment was not at all what he had imagined, and he was left reeling from the rejection.

The next day, the girlfriend insisted her boyfriend re-do the proposal, but this time exactly how she had envisioned it. However, by that point, the man couldn’t bring himself to do it, feeling rejected already. He recalled his girlfriend arguing, "She didn't reject it, just simply it wasn't how she would have wanted it to happen." Heartbroken by her initial response, he turned to the Reddit community, asking, "Is this a valid reason for me not wanting to be with her anymore?" 

u/Top-Negotiation1888, commented, "Dude, you took her to HAWAII? And proposed on the beach under the moonlight? And that wasn't good enough? Run. Run quickly." u/Wooden-Glove-2384 said, "She's a child." u/firstdevlopment3595 advised the same, "I know it hurts right now, but you have dodged a huge bullet." Another person, u/Permission2act, echoed, "She showed you her priorities. It seems a grand proposal is more important than becoming your wife. Let that sink in." Meanwhile, u/Background-Fact-5422 pointed out, "If the proposal wasn't up to par, nothing in life will be." The young man later shared in an update that his girlfriend had since apologized to him. "She’s apologizing to me, telling me she really regrets doing that and assuring me she would’ve said yes anyway. My biggest regret is I’ll never really know what she would’ve said, though in my gut I’m not 100% sure she would’ve said yes," he wrote. "I’ll be sleeping on the couch, she’ll be packing her things tomorrow and going to live with her parents."