Capital

A seven-panel comic of a marriage proposal told entirely in the language of economics and optimization. Panel 1: a man kneels-style proposes to a red-haired woman against an orange sunset sea, saying "Anna, will you marry me?"; she replies "Oh, Dave!" Panel 2: instead of a ring, the woman holds a small box, calling it "a box containing the cash-equivalent value of an engagement ring!" Panel 3: the man clarifies it's "ALMOST equivalent" because the value of getting to choose your own ring has been subtracted from the total. Panel 4: she gushes that this is "such a beautifully valid analysis!" Panel 5: he says she "beautifully exceeded all of the 37% of people I sampled from a finite pool of candidate partners," a nod to the optimal-stopping 37% rule. Panel 6: the couple embraces under a starry night sky as she declares he has "signalled at sufficient cost for me to call off my sequential mate search until conditions significantly change" (and calls him Steve). Panel 7: a close-up of the smiling man saying she's made him "the happiest man in some bounded region of Earth." Votey (aftercomic): a simply-drawn close-up of the woman's face urging, "Hurry my dear, before the cash deflates!"