The whole idea of single sided proposals feels weird as hell and kinda emotionally exploitive to me

Oh yeah. Proposals should never be the moment where you're actually asking and unsure of what your partner will say - that's just a recipe for heartbreak. Typically, you talk about feelings towards marriage in advance, and then once you're sure this is what both of you want then whoever the proposer is gets to do the fun little minigame of how they're gonna do it.

Disclaimer: I am a little baby and this is just stuff I've read that seems to make sense