For a girl, the wedding is when you’re married. For a guy, it’s when you get engaged. It takes a real aggressive human being to back out between the ring and the wedding.

Greenfield frames engagement and marriage as psychologically different milestones for men and women, using a comic, stereotyped contrast: women experience the “wedding” as the actual marriage, while men experience the decisive moment as the proposal. The punch line—calling someone “aggressive” for backing out after giving a ring—highlights how social expectations and public commitment intensify once an engagement is announced. The quote’s humor depends on exaggeration, but it points to a real cultural script: proposals are treated as a binding promise, and breaking that promise is often judged more harshly than ending a private relationship. It also implicitly critiques how ritual and symbolism (the ring) can create pressure that outpaces genuine readiness.