What do you get when you add 99 units of the iPhone 6 and one marriage proposal? Possibly an empty wallet and a broken heart.
This is the harsh lesson that a man in China recently learned after he spent two-years worth of his salary (RMB 500,000, roughly $82,000) to purchase 99 iPhone 6’s as props for his marriage proposal to his girlfriend, only to have her say “no” after he popped the question.
As reported by Chinese news site, The Nanfang, the young programmer from Guangzhou province proposed to his girlfriend before November 11, “Singles Day” in China.
On Singles Day, it has become customary for single men and women to woo each other with lavish gifts – hence, the “99 iPhones” touch.
The young programmer used the iPhones to build a big heart, inside which he proposed to the girl, in front of a large-enough crowd of friends and onlookers.
Sadly, she rejected his proposal.
Users of Chinese microblogging site Weibo, where photos of the (sad) event were posted, had diverse reactions. One said the move was stupid; while others said the iPhones would not be a problem to re-sell, and the man could easily make his money back. Another user reportedly asked ““How many kidneys did it take to buy those phones?”, in reference to recent news that a young man had sold his kidneys to buy an iPhone; to which another user replied, “99 kidneys!”
A survey done by Metro.co.uk, however, showed that 1 in 5 single men would rather have an iPhone 6 than a girlfriend. So the young programmer may be able to find some solace in that.