My boyfriend asked me one day what romance was. "We spend time together...isn't that enough?" He questioned, sounding genuinely perplexed. I cried. What do you mean the man I love didn't want to create a world of star-gazing and flowers and huge romantic gestures every second of the day? It seemed cold, cruel and utterly impossible to be in a relationship that didn't include passions on top of passions.
I spent yesterday evening writing all the while having How I Met Your Mother on in the background. Every time I poked my head out from my laptop screen, Ted was in the middle of some insanely romantic plan to win a girl over. From surprising a girl he wanted to date with a string quartet in her apartment to taking a girl on an elaborate two minute date since that was all the time she had available for a date, this is the kind of impossible romantic drivel being pounded into my head every time I tune into mass media. It's getting to a point that unless I marry Romeo Montague, no man will ever satisfy me in the romance department. That's the problem with wanting fake love; it's only possible in the movies.
I love Coldplay. Yes, I realize they've douched out since becoming one of the biggest bands in the world, but when my best friend and I were first discovering them when we were in middle school, they were a charming, new and earnest band who sang simple songs about love. I was hooked. From the time I was in my early teens until my early twenties, I listened to Coldplay nonstop. That's a good decade of my life spent being brainwashed by such heartbreaking tender lyrics such as "Look at the stars, look how they shine for you, and everything you do,' and "Lights will guide you home, and ignite your soul, and I will try and fix you." not to mention "You are a rock, upon which I stand," I mean really. I never stood a chance.
It's not that I'm looking for fireworks and flowers every time I go on a date (well not anymore at least..) but the romantic in me, the one who remembers every love line, lyric and gesture from every book, show and movie she's seen, always gets her hopes just the teeniest bit raised whenever there's a possibility for one to happen. And so far I've been met with nothing but disappointment. This is not to read as some commentary on the caliber of my boyfriend (Although romantic, he is not. We have a joke. On a scale of romance it goes: old boot > my boyfriend > smelly old boot. His defense? "Well at least I'm better than a smelly old boot!" Cute.) but rather a commentary on how much pop culture has infiltrated our lives. Realistic love, or more specifically the ways in which love and admiration are expressed in the everyday world, just don't seem to be as meaningful unless matched with larger than life actions.
It's been something of a realization for me that everyone loves in their own way. Not everyone cares for huge lovey-dovey gestures, but that shouldn't read as them being any less...well, loving. I know I'll aways be some one whose heart swells when the male protagonist in the movie wins the girl back with some crazy elaborate scheme (JT and the flash dance mob in Friends with Benefits, Heath dancing along the stairs and singing in Ten Things I Hate About You, Freddy Prince Jr. in every movie he's ever been in, etc.) but it's because I wear my heart on my sleeve, and always will. (Literally...those heart tattoos aren't going anywhere.) But what it takes for a non-romantic to be with me, or anyone else, is simply love. Expressed in the way they want, so long as it's expressed. Traditional hopeless romantics may shake their heads, but we live in modern times, and this modern girl is adapting her ways.
Fake love be damned. I'll settle for real love any day. That old boot may be on to something....x
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