John:

Hello and welcome to Sports with John…Hankgames…I don’t remember what it is called. I’m Swindon Town. I’m playing Charlton Athletic, former Premier league club, now down to League 1 where they are facing the likes of Swindon Town, the Swindon Town Swoodilypoopers. Today I am going to tell you, by popular request, the story of how the Yeti and I came to be engaged, how I proposed to her that we should become married. But first, I need to give you a brief update on the squad.

Swindon Town has made some serious strides in the transfer market and we now have, I think, a significantly improved team. Most importantly, we have enough midfielders which we’ve never had. But upfront, we still have numbers 9 and 11, John Green and John Green, respectively. Also, I’ve received some tips from people in comments who were saying that I don’t pass enough and so I have been trying to pass more. I’m going to try to pass more in this game to show you that I am listening to you. And please do share your comments with me about what I should talk about in these videos but also how I might play better.

So I’m going to tell you how I proposed to Sarah. I knew that I wanted to marry Sarah, you know, pretty quickly to be honest with you. But it’s not really…but it wasn’t like…

See I passed, I passed. I’d…and GAW!! How does he miss it? Open goal. I haven’t seen him miss that bad since Fernando Torres’ miss yesterday. My goodness. My goodness. I needed to be a little more patient there and I apologize.

So I knew I wanted to marry Sarah pretty early on, but we didn’t start talking seriously about getting engaged for a year. And you know for the record I found it a little strange that the way proposals usually work, that men have like a year to decide…

Whoa, a spin-y move.

…men have a year to decide if they want to marry a girl and then the girl has like thirty seconds to say yes or no. That’s always struck me as just a little bit weird and misogynistic and outdated.

So, you know, marriage was definitely something that Sarah and I talked about before we got engaged and she knew that we were…that I was going to propose at some point. She designed…

“Bald” John Green. [SWI - #9 J. Green 19’] (2:10) HE’S A FINISHER! “Bald” John Green. With a beautiful mustache. Show me the mustache, show me your mustache “Bald” John Green. I love it. What is that weird dance? Why are you sticking out your bottom like that? “Bald” John Green. You can’t stop him, you can only hope to contain him. 1-nil for Swindon Town. Ugh, I can’t stop looking at it. And Bald…ugh. He just has the best mustache in the business.

By the way, thanks to everybody whose come up with some soccer chants for “Bald” John Green. Since he just scored, let’s – uh oh, uh oh, uh oh – let’s sing in one voice. How does it go? [sings] He’s big, he’s fast, he’s got a nice mustache. “Bald” John Green, “Bald” John Green. He’s big, he’s fast, he’s got a nice mustache. “Bald” John Green. “Bald” John Green. That’s our song about “Bald” John Green. It encourages him to play harder. See I was trying to pass there. Passing, passing is inefficient.

So it was not something that was like a total surprise to Sarah. That’s important for you to know. However, she didn’t know the timing of it or anything. So one day, what I did was I filled…I went out. Sarah lived at the time in a fourth floor walk up in Chicago and I went and I brought her roses.  I brought a flower for each step up the fourth floor walk up, which is like sixty steps, so that becomes important later in the story. And in addition to that, I’d wanted some kind of romantic way to ask her and I couldn’t think of anything. And then, this was right around the time that Looking for Alaska came out. This was shortly after I became a proper author. And I had been invited to a conference in Oxford, Mississippi, the Oxford Conference for the Book. And during that conference, I met Hendrik Hertzberg, whose one of Sarah’s favorite writers. He writes for the New Yorker magazine. He writes about politics and just a fascinating, very very smart writer. Super intellectual. Just the kind, you know, just the kind of writer Sarah likes. And I…

Uh oh, uh oh, uh oh. I had a brief moment of panic there. But you know, passing got me out of it. All right, so right now I am going to the corner like you guys hate it when I do. But I’m not going to do the typical thing. I’m not going to do the typical cross. I’m going to do this button. And then – [SWI - #11 J. Green 39’] (4:30) OH WHAT A BEAUTIFUL GOAL! Oh "Other" John Green with a beautiful header. Oh "Other" John Green he has such a beautiful head. You know that hair makes it easier for him to score with his head. Whoa. Pruitt, I’ve seen better jobs out of you. Anyway, beautiful goal. Both “Bald” John Green and "Other" John Green have now scored. Charlton Athletic thoroughly demoralized 2-nil in the first half and I’m playing on semi-pro skill level. So someone is getting better. Thanks again for your tips, guys. Keep them coming.

So I asked Hendrik Hertzberg to sign his book to Sarah…

Aw. “Bald” John Green, I expect better out of you. Cover your bald head in shame.

I asked him to sign a book, “Dear Sarah, will you marry John Green?, signed Hendrik Hertzberg.” And he agreed to do that. So I basically had Hendrik Hertzberg ask Sarah to marry me. Later, by the way, this is…the story only gets depressing and disappointing from here. But later, I invited Hendrik Hertzberg to my wedding. And he emailed back and he said, “I won’t be able to come, of course.” And I was like, what do you mean “of course”. What do you mean “of course”. You can just say “I won’t be able to come.” You don’t have to say “of course,” Hendrik Hertzberg. Anyway, he didn’t send a gift. I didn’t take it personally. But yeah, so Hendrik Hertzberg basically proposed to Sarah for me. And in the second half, I will tell you the story of how it actually went down.

We are going in with a solid two-nil lead, but you know I like to see the boys get a couple more, but I’m proud of the new Swindon Town. So, on the day in question, I left work early. I was working at a magazine at the time. I left work early. I went to Sarah’s apartment. And I got in thanks to her roommate. And then I put all the roses. And then I had the Hendrik Hertzberg book signed in my sweaty hands. And I had the ring in my pocket and I practiced taking the ring out of my pocket. And giving my little spiel about how I loved her and I thought we should get married and would she marry me and whatever whatever.

And that was a nice through ball, but there was no one there. I still got a point for it though.

And Sarah called me. And one other thing to note is that at the time Sarah was not a curator of contemporary art at a fancy art museum. She was managing an art gallery, a commercial art gallery in Chicago, and she wanted to go to grad school so that she can become a real like grown-up curator.

He was a little bit offside. Aw, they called it. Yeah, it’s true. Good job. That’s okay though John Green. Your heart was in the right place. "Other" John Green is really... I mean he is the second most important John Green to the team, but he is still vital.

So we didn’t know if she was going to go to… Most of the grad schools that she applied to were in Chicago and I really wanted to stay in Chicago. I loved Chicago and I just didn’t want to move. But she applied to some graduate schools in New York and in some other places. But the school that she wanted to the most was Columbia University in New York. Ivy League school, very good reputation. And I really did not want to move to New York City.

So on the afternoon in question Sarah called me on her way home from work and I said “Are you coming home?” And she said, “I am coming home but I have a FedEx package and I think it might be from Columbia, so I going to go pick it up.”

And I said, “Sarah, listen to me, for reasons that I cannot explain to you it is very important that you not go to FedEx to pick that package. It is important that you come home first. Because there are important events at home.” I tried to make it as clear as I possibly could.

And she was like, “I really want to go get that FedEx, I might find out if I got into Columbia.” And I was like, “ Right, but I don’t want…I just…I’d…I’d…that’s not what we should be thinking about right now.” And finally she said, “Okay, I will not go to FedEx. I will not pick up the package. I don’t know what you are talking about but it’s clear that it is important to you and I love you and as a good partner I will…I will not go to FedEx.”

Four minutes later she calls me screaming, “I GOT INTO COLUMBIA, WE’RE MOVING TO NEW YORK!” And I was like, “Why did you go to FedEx when I explicitly…you told me you weren’t going to.” And she was like, “I couldn’t help it, I couldn’t…I’d…I’d…I was too excited.” So then I was just like, “Come home, there was more news.” And I knew that no matter what happened, like that was going to be the second most important…

OH, NO! Unnecessary slide tackle leads to breakaway. OH FAT LUCAS HAROW! Harow? I don’t know what that means. Anyway, Fat Lucas. Beautiful save. Typical of Fat Lucas though. You know he is always getting his team out of trouble. Oh, unnecessary slide…oh no. Yeah, that’s going to be a foul. So, yellow card please, thank you, I accept it.

Sarah…so Sarah comes home and we get engaged and then as soon as she sees the roses she says “John Green, no you didn’t”. And then she comes upstairs. I ask to marry me via Hendrik Hertzberg. She says yes. And then we started calling all our friends and all our friends are…are like “Well, we knew that you were going to get married, but we didn’t know that you were moving to New York, so that is by far the most interesting news of the day.” So in the end like our act…

OH NO. Fat Lucas, I need you. Great job. Great job, baby. Can I…can I…can I get a close up on Fat Lucas please? That was just poor clearance by John Green. You know, Fat Lucas, he just always coming through in those situations.

So yeah, all our friends weren’t that excited for us about the actual engagement because…

Oh. Oh, right off the line. Saved off the line.

…because, you know, the real…the story of the day was that we were moving to New York. Which we did and we lived there for two years and it was two lovely years and I liked it much more than I thought I would. But on some level, you know, on some…

OH. Oh, that was almost a beautiful goal. That was almost the goal of the season for Swindon Town. I used the Y button. That’s a new button for me. I’m really trying…working to discover some new buttons.

But, you know, the real story there is that it doesn’t matter that much. It was kind of cute that I used Hendrik Hertzberg and the roses were kind of cute and whatever. But the work of a proposal is, I mean, is minuscule compared to the real business at hand, which is, you know, getting married and being married. I think sometimes in like the romanticism of all the events around marriage, around proposals, and wanting to make sure that everything is like, you know, perfect and super sweet that you forget that the real thing that you are doing is this big, life-altering, permanent thing of getting married. So I think like our engagement was much more focused on the marriage than on the actual engagement. We were not that focused even on our wedding, we were mostly focused on starting our marriage and starting our life together. And that’s worked out pretty well for us.

So I recommend it even if you marry a girl who goes to FedEx when you explicitly ask her not to. So we didn’t scored any goals in the second half but there you can see mustachioed “Bald” John Green celebrating with his teammates, with "Other" John Green, with little McGovern over there. And there is just great joy in this new Swindon Town squad as we win 2-nil over Charlton Athletic, former Premier League squad. Soon enough Swindon Town hopes to be in the Premier League themselves.

Thank you for watching this with me.

I will not see you and you will not see me, but I don’t know the outro so next time tell me what to talk about.

Ugh, what a goal.

Best wishes!

 

[vs. Charlton Athletic: W 2-0

SWI: “Bald” John Green 19’, Other John Green 39’]