Man sparks huge debate for proposing to girlfriend during her graduation ceremony

The student who interrupted his girlfriend’s graduation ceremony in order to propose to her has come in for criticism online.

On Tuesday (July 18), the University of Newcastle released footage of a young woman on the stage waiting to receive her degree.

As she was about to have her moment in front of the gathered audience, her partner – who is also a student at the university – ran up to her from the crowd.

To her great surprise, the young man then proceeded to pull a ring box from his pocket and drop to one knee, causing her to raise her hands to her face in shock.

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Then, as the crowd realised what was going on, they broke into applause and the man waved and smiled towards them, before placing the ring on the woman’s finger.

Since the video went viral and earned millions of views around the world, scores of social media users have criticised the young man and claimed that he shouldn’t have stolen his partner’s moment in the limelight.

“If my partner proposed to me at my PhD graduation ceremony I would break up with them,” one wrote.

One more said: “I actually hate that that guy proposed to his girlfriend at her graduation. Let her have her moment, guy. Ugh.”

Another said: “It's very telling that he's presumably a fellow graduand, but he proposed during *her* graduation moment and not his own. His graduation is about just him and now her graduation is about him too. Urrghhh.”

“Feel sorry for the woman who was proposed to at her graduation ceremony,” one commented, adding: “The double embarrassment of having her special moment usurped by her fiancé, and now thousands on social media calling him out and inevitably adding further tension to their engagement. I hope she’s ok…”

“Man if someone proposed to me at my GRADUATION, I would drop kick them to the moon. That is MY moment, and I will NOT have MY work upstaged,” another added.

Others, though, saw the whole thing as an overreaction.

One wrote: “The level of posting about the graduation proposal is SO unhinged. thousands of people telling you online to dump your fiancé and ripping into one of the happiest days of your life is probably significantly more upsetting than getting proposed to on your graduation!”

Another summed up the situation by saying: “I see there are over a thousand retweets, the vast majority of which are highly negative and abusive, of an innocuous tweet from a Uni about someone who proposed at graduation. So many very angry, unhappy and bitter people on this app that use it to feel better about themselves.”

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