The 10th Anniversary of Windows Live Messenger is less than 2 weeks away.  As part of the celebration, we’re posting fun/touching stories from users and today’s Messenger story is from Cindy, who works in the Microsoft China office.  It’s a great story, let us know if you’ve tried this yourself and what your results were. :)

A quick Messenger fun fact:  Windows Live Messenger is available in 76 countries and 48 languages –Messenger users can say “I love you” not only in English, Spanish, German and Japanese (the initial 4 languages) but also Chinese, Estonian, Thai, Catalan, Hindi and many more. (How many languages can you say ‘I love you’ in?  Try it out… I could only get to 5… :))

Tips on how to propose via Windows Live Messenger
(Sent in by Mr. Zhang in China) 

A few days ago a coworker of mine successfully proposed to his girlfriend via his Windows Live status message. It caused such a commotion around here that everyone and their dog knew. For those of you who are still digging around in your brains for a creative proposing strategy, let me share with you his little success story.  Let’s start off from the beginning. One regular afternoon at work, he suddenly changed his Windows Live Messenger status message to: “Today I am proposing. Everyone, please help me send a text at 19:00 that says: XiaXue, please marry Liu YunShan!” At first we thought he was just playing around, but he told us he was being serious!

So for the whole day, he kept signing in and out, in and out. It was impossible for anyone who was on Messenger with a pair of eyes to not see his message. It immediately became the hottest topic on Messenger as everyone became interested in helping him out.

Right after work, we all found a good place near the main entrance to hide and watch “the show.” I even borrowed our company’s video camera to record that special moment. As planned, the lucky lady appeared at around 6pm. Completely clueless, she walked into our building as we bombarded her with our paparazzi-like photography skills. Before she knew it, he appeared right there in front of her, down on one knee. In his hand was a bouquet of 99 fresh red roses. At that moment, everyone in the entire building melted.

Just when she thought things were over, her cell phone began to ring. One ring after another, the Messenger proposal volunteers’ messages all came flooding into her cell phone. OMG, it must have lasted for at least 5 minutes. She burst into tears as she read the proposal messages:

“Speaking on behalf of the entire company, I strongly ask that you marry XiaoShan! He has been nominated as the best employee for years! With him, at least your stomach will always be filled!”

“XiaoXue, please take good care of XiaoShan”

“XiaoXue, marry XiaoShan! He is mature, stable, career-driven, has a house, almost has a car… Wait, this is what I’m looking for in a husband! PS: he has sexy legs :) Marry him!”

“Sister in-law, please pay mercy to XiaoShan, he has been singing Single Love Song every day, we’re all about to explode. If he sings that again, beat him up! Hehe, wish you guys the best!”

“Beautiful XiaoXue, marry XiaoShan!”

“XiaoXue, marry the beasty XiaoShan!”

…

So touching *sniff*.

The proposal strategy was successful: the couple went and registered the next day.

One of my friends heard about this success story and decided to follow suit. He, however, did not ask for help. He just went ahead and proposed to his girlfriend in his status message:

“My dearest Lan, here are 999 roses, please be my beautiful bride, will you marry me?”

After crying her eyes out, Lan agreed. Sure, it was pretty cheesy, but a few days later they registered too. We must admit that this strategy works, and it works pretty darn well.

From these two experiences, I have derived a few key points that I would like to share with all the clueless men out there.

1. When proposing, if you are asking for help (XiaoShan’s case), make sure your words are succinct. This will attract more eyeballs and thus increase your success rate. If you are proposing in your status message (Lan’s case), then you gotta be cheesy. Some cheese and corn will do it best. Below is my friend’s plan. Unfortunately, he has nobody to say it to. Notice how he used a lot of roses?

2. You must sign in and sign out at least once per minute! Make sure everyone in your list sees your message!
3. Choose your sign in time wisely. Best time is during working hours when everyone is on Messenger. ;)

Thanks, and good luck! :p