Who says that romance is dead? As women shook their heads sadly on learning this week that our menfolk are officially the least romantic in the world, 26-year-old Pete Simson single-handedly rode to their rescue.

Without any apparent thought to the humiliation of a public refusal, the local radio journalist proposed to his girlfriend, Hannah McDonagh, in a film starring himself, prancing about in underpants and miming Daniel Bedingfield’s pop hit If You’re Not The One.

He hired an arthouse cinema in Bristol for a surprise viewing. When it was over, the lights came down on the couple and he proposed on bended knee. Hannah, a trainee lawyer who thought that she was going to see an arthouse film on her birthday, confessed to being a bit “confused”, but said yes.

So how should a man propose? Few girls can honestly pretend that they have not dreamt of being asked for their hand at the summit of Cordillera del Paine in Patagonia, or on a chairlift in Zermatt.

Occasionally our longed-for fiancés take the hint. After ten years’ dating, one couple I know, Ben and Charlotte, set off for a long weekend in Laos from their home in Singapore. Charlotte was astonished when they took a bareback elephant ride to a remote cave, which had been strewn with petals and laid for a silver-service dinner with candles and crystal. A butler served champagne before Ben dropped suddenly to one knee and proposed.

It could be a skywritten proposal or a radio announcement, yet while we long to be able to tell our children of how their father proposed to us Hollywood-style, it is the tales of those grand gestures that go horribly wrong that linger. Another couple recount how they went on holiday to Africa, where he intended to propose. Having bought a ring, Sam handed it over to the hotel staff and asked for it to be presented in an ice cube for his girlfriend’s evening drink before dinner.

The day was to be spent on safari in the bush, with a driver. But the Land Rover broke down, they had to be rescued late in the evening and returned to the hotel shattered and frightened. It was too late for dinner, but Sam persuaded Amanda to have a drink. Her mood only worsened, however, when the gin and tonic arrived, and Sam began manically hunting through the ice bucket. Finding no ring, he turned the bucket upside down in a panic before finally plopping an ice cube (placed conveniently at the bottom of the bucket) containing the ring into her drink. She said yes, although clearly they have enjoyed the retelling of it more in hindsight.

One of the most-viewed clips on YouTube concerns Mike from Austin proposing to his girlfriend, Lynne, on an American talk show. Telling the audience that the past few months with her have been the happiest of his life, this small, balding man goes down on bended knee and proposes. But aaargh, it is not Hollywood. She visibly recoils and whispers: “Can we talk about this later?”

Rhys Ifans did not do much better when he allegedly proposed to Sienna Miller by penning his own Welsh ditty entitled Marry this Misfit and serenading her on his guitar. According to one source at the time, the actress fell about laughing before she realised he was serious — “She didn’t give him an answer straight away”. They split up soon afterwards.

The key to a successful proposal, many women would agree, does not lie in a grand gesture but in a thoughtful one. This week a worldwide study of 6,500 people by the pyschologist Richard Wiseman found that British men labour under the misguided belief that women want to be showered with diamonds. In fact far from the materialist vixens that we might appear to be, we really prefer our men to run us a bath, rub our backs or to bring us an early morning cup of tea.

In the same way, proposing on a bench in a favourite garden, atop a mountain or in a rowing boat in the middle of a Scottish loch are all less high risk and equally treasured. Champagne should always be close to hand, if not being warmed in the backpack, at least available from a nearby restaurant or bar. Once the man has mastered this minefield of expectations and disappointments, he simply has to find the ring.

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