Sunday was April Fool’s Day – sadly this year I forgot all about it and failed to play a joke on anyone. But on reflection that might be a good thing, as one person’s ‘hilarious gag’ can easily be someone else’s ‘You think that’s funny, do you? I’ll show you funny …’

I was thinking about a couple I know and the near-catastrophe of April Fool’s Day 2010. She was very keen to get married, and although it was understood that this was on the cards, He still hadn’t got round to actually proposing. Then, on April 1st, her colleagues spotted that her Facebook status had changed to ‘engaged’. Surprised that She hadn’t announced it immediately in a fit of bridal glee, they enquired tentatively as to what was going on.

It turns out that He had hacked her account. He thought it was the funniest jape ever.

Julie Bishop would have envied the frosty glare She wore.

The status was swiftly corrected and I can only imagine the verbal bashing He endured at home that night. But He proposed for real a few months later and they are now happily married. I was there and it was a fantastic wedding, so all’s well that ends well.

Now you might think that this is Typical Man stuff, but I have to confess to my own misplaced sense of humour. As this year was a Leap Year, I thought it might be most amusing to faux-propose to The Boyfriend, thinking that he would be totally freaked out, and then oh how we would laugh!

Friends wisely suggested that this could backfire horribly and I reconsidered. I’m so glad I did – I later discovered that The Boyfriend had never heard of the tradition of women proposing to men on 29 February, and would have assumed I was serious. Cue awkwardness. He also asked what I would have done should he have gathered me into his arms, crying ‘Yes! Yes! A thousand times yes!’ Run for the hills, probably, and I shudder to think of the backpedalling conversations we would have had to stumble through afterwards.

So a fake proposal is not a great recipe for comedy, I have learned. Has anyone else ever had a prank go badly wrong?