Juan’s Version: The REAL version (not that fake stuff to the left) is that, I knew for the longest that Dominique liked me–come on: I am an attractive guy–I know when the chickens flock to me 😉 … that and my co-workers were telling me that she did.  I decided to play hard to get and ignore her for a long time, only giving minimal responses. Over Thanksgiving break, my family and I went to eat at IHOP and I received a text message from Dominique, wishing me a happy Thanksgiving.  I decided that it was time to turn it up a notch, so I responded with a longer than normal response.  We started texting back and forth, which eventually led to us talking on the phone almost all night. Clearly this Dominican boy toy didn’t need to do much work as we went out on a date the next day and at the restaurant, we talked for hours (even got kicked out).  The rest is HIStory.

Date: Saturday, September 20th, 2014

Story: This was by far my most elaborate rouse yet.  I had this great plan of how I would ask her. The plan was…my family and her family would go out to dinner at a restaurant that had outside seating, and a flash mob would come to our table and bum rush her asking her for her autograph (since she was on Making The Band). Well, that fell short because a flashmob of 10 people was over $4,000 (plus food and drinks for each of them).  The second idea was to go to one of her favorite restaurants — it’s inside Fort Tryon Park — and essentially have the staff of the restaurant do the same thing.  Three waiters would come up and ask for her signature (their names would have been Will, Yuv, and Mary) and I would have had the last card that said “Me?”. Unfortunately, the restaurant was closed for a private event the week I wanted to do it.  I then decided to just tell her that I had reservations and that we were going to go eat before going to her grandma’s house–this way I could at least get her into the park. I had the ring box inside my sock. We walked up to the restaurant door, and there was a sign that said “Closed for Private Event”.  Dominique was upset that I had not confirmed my reservation because she was hungry. Since we were at the park, I suggested that we go up into the park for a few minutes and watch the view before leaving, since we were already there.  As we were walking, we got to a split in the road. I stopped her (and thought really quick): “do it here, say something along the lines of — ‘there comes a time in a man’s life where he has to make a decision.  He can choose to be a man or a boy. etc…'”.  I brought her to me, kissed her, and told her I loved her but opted not do it there because it wasn’t romantic enough.  We continued to the top of the park and it could not have been any more perfect.  There was only a small group of people there, the sun was setting,  and the view was perfect.  I held her close to me and kissed her.  She turned away from me to see the view and apologized for the dinner plans falling through. I said, “It’s ok. It’s all going according to plan”.  I dropped to my knees, took out the box and opened it.  Dominique started to turn around and say, “What do you mean according to…” and stopped once she saw where I was.  I expressed how much I loved her and asked her to marry me.  She, being in shock, didn’t answer–to which I had to say “Hellooooo”.  She said yes, people started to walk around us, and a couple asked “Is that what I think it is?” I said yes.  They asked us if we wanted to get our picture taken and we said yes.  Although it wasn’t my original plan, it still was amazing.