Going through the ringer

Buying an engagement ring is something most of us face at some point. Dan Rookwood navigates you through the choppy waters of life on the high Cs. There are certain rites of passage transactions you never forget: your first beer, your first car, your first house, your first tailored suit, your first wife’s engagement ring. The latter is a life purchase I recently made.

Buying a diamond is a little like buying drugs or a second hand vehicle: it massively helps if you know your dealer personally, or you know someone who knows a dealer personally. So let me introduce to my very good friend Arman. Mention my name and he promises to look after you. His diamonds are forever and ever, Arman.

Getting engaged isn’t something you should do on a whim or drugs; it’s a big deal. After all, you don’t get married every day. (Unless your name is Elizabeth Taylor.) Not only are you parting with several thousand dollars in exchange for some shiny bit of rock, you’re also waving goodbye to your wanton youth. As Vince Vaughn’s character says to Will Ferrell’s in Old School, “you get one vagina for the rest of your life”.

Given that pound for pound an engagement ring is probably the most expensive thing you’ll ever buy, it pays to do your homework carefully in advance. I learn all about the “four Cs”: carat (size and weight), cut (shape), clarity (purity) and colour (you don’t want any). Where a diamond appears on the graphic equaliser of these four scales dictates the fifth C: cost.

I go and see a few respected jewellers – Tiffany, Percy Marks, Bunda – for a ballpark figure. And that ballpark looks dauntingly like the New York Yankees stadium. So then I frown and swear at my effing bank statement. And then I open up a secret bank account and I save and save like an evangelist with OCD.

Fast-forward several months of penury and homemade packed lunches until you hit now. Then rewind a few weeks. Stop. This is where Arman enters the story. He’s the jeweller my friend Anoop and his family go to. “I’ll introduce you,” says Anoop. “Arman will look after you, don’t worry.”

There’s a covert drama around buying the goods in advance of popping the question that gets the adrenaline flowing and makes you feel almost like you’re living out a Guy Ritchie movie. (Except without quite so many gun-toting mock-cockney geezers, hopefully.)

For starters, it helps if you have that personal introduction via a close friend and an appointment. Then it’ll go something like this…

You push the door of the jeweller’s but it doesn’t open. Someone inside presses the security buzzer. You enter and the door locks behind you. Handshakes. Your palm is clammy. Please, sit down.

The merchandise is kept in a safe. You get to inspect it with a monocular, a pair of tweezers and a light box so you can pretend you can spot the difference between a flawless gem and a lump of quartz. It feels a bit like that game the optometrist plays with you during an eye test when you’re not sure whether the red or the green circle is clearer.

Then you awkwardly pussyfoot around your budget while trying not to sound like a cheapskate and/or an amateur. At this point the jeweller knows you’re serious rather than on a fact-finding mission and he senses a sale. He dangles a carat in front of you. You like it because it’s big and size matters. He tells you what the full price is. The colour drains from your face. But the jeweller is your new best mate. He assures you he’ll give you a good price because any friend of Anoop’s is a friend of his.

And so the dance begins.

You’re prepared so you know exactly what your budget is and you know exactly what you’re looking for. The former is two months salary but you tell the jeweller ten per cent lower than your limit to account for his salesmanship; the latter is a six claw round brilliant cut diamond solitaire that is high up on all the C scales – but which an independent third-party certificate assures you hasn’t cost an African miner his life – on a simple white gold band.

Now you get down to price. The figures are seen but not heard: he jabs at his oversize calculator and pushes it over to you so you can read the display. You frown and purse your lips and suck your teeth as if to tell the jeweller he can give you a better price. The jeweller is well versed in reading this body language, so he obligingly pounds the calculator some more, as if working through some terribly intricate sums involving the exchange rate, the Dow Jones Index and the lunar cycle before coming up with another number which is still a couple of thousand dollars over your budget. So you go cold on the deal. Maybe I’ll go away and think about it, you say. He looks you in the eyes. He taps into his calculator once more. It’s more than you wanted to spend ideally but within the ten per cent contingency. Handshake. Yours is still sweaty.

“Given that this is a five-figure life purchase, this isn’t the time to get all experimental or take a risk with the design,” advises Arman. Yes, five figures. “Most men buy rings that are between seven to 16K, with the average first time purchase at around 10 and 11.” When you’re a jeweller, the thousands are a given. “The ones who spend more are usually second time arounders.”

“You cannot go wrong with that ring,” coos his able assistant Marie, helpfully and reassuringly giving the woman’s point of view. “The solitaire is the classic engagement ring, one that will never go out of fashion. Tastes and styles change, but this design is timeless.” It’s such a winner that most jewellers are confident enough to say you can bring a solitaire ring back if necessary. But it won’t be; Arman has never had one returned.

Of course, there is a way to eradicate any risk: let her choose her own ring. But that necessarily means that, like about 50 per cent of blokes these days, you popped the question with a dummy ring rather than the real thing. To my mind, a man who proposes without the ring is hedging his bets. It indicates a lack of commitment, a hint of doubt, an abdication of trouser-wearing responsibilities. Right, Arman? He won’t be drawn on this pop psychoanalysis. “Some couples like to choose the ring together,” he says. “It’s very exciting.”

By contrast, a man who has bought the ring in advance is a man who knows his own mind, who doesn’t shy away from life’s big decisions, who backs himself. “They are usually more confident, self-assured guys,” says Arman. Buying a diamond literally crystalises the decision to get married. It’s a rock-solid investment of intent. Once you’ve saved up that kind of money, you’ve already thought it through very carefully over a suitably long period of time. You are ready. “It’s more romantic this way,” he says. “Plus she doesn’t know the cost, which can be helpful.”

I say Arman to that.