I think some of you might find this very hard to believe, but I have good reason to suspect it’s true. Take a deep breath, as you exhale and feel a sense of calm come over you, hear me when I say, “I’m a romantic.” [Years ago in a different context, I claimed otherwise.]
Did you hear it? In my Nick P. voice? Did it come out coy instead of sarcastic? Was it like a deadpan readout from a computerized voice? In my own head I hear a kind of defensive pride. Like how dare you accuse me of being anything less! To think I’ve offered you so much and you know me so well that you don’t see my heart swell during those perfect moments in life or on screen! For shame!
I think my ideas regarding romance simply evolved. So for me, there’s romance in honesty. There’s romance in depicting the ideal even if it can never be achieved. I have yet been unable to stop myself from smirking when two “perfectly matched” pretty people in some movie have one of those intimate or heart-racing interactions as their budding relationship starts to unfold. I know the story after the fade to black never gets told. I know there’s a tried and true structure for the fight they’re going to get in 23 minutes before the end of the film. But damned if a hand brush in a movie theater or look into each others’ eyes on some isolated scenic route doesn’t crack a smirk.
But I beat things up, right? I have to take all the language you use to describe the world and exhaustively shit on it and how it does a terrible job in helping you think let alone orient your decisions. To talk of “romance” is to fetishize a level of effort and compulsion so antithetical to human behavior that we pathologize and idolize unrealistic standards and instill expectations that leave us lonely and jaded. It’s foolish children who allow themselves to be deluded by these fantastic depictions of love and healthy relationships and we’re as addicted to these constructs as a person struggling with a porn habit might relate to their raw dick and broken standards.
Snore.
I’m not saying any of that is less than true, but it’s definitely a certain flavor of truth that mostly no one but me gives a shit about. It’s not the kind of truth that creates friendships or leads to marriage. It’s that “wise bachelor” bravado that’s been around the block and “knows brawds” so’s to keep himself on the right side of these nit-picky feelings that leave most of his buddies a total wreck, eventually.
The kind of truth that concerns itself with the word “romance” is pure feeling. It’s a level of life-affirming assurance in something that deserves every depiction of it you can make without having to use words. Here I ring the bell of my glorious habit of destroying all that is beautiful and true by reducing things to words, but nonetheless the space exists for me to push past myself.
So how to idolize, respect, perhaps measure and speak to romance without cheapening it? That is, you can watch a movie in the romance genre or read a book you know will be a love story and still finding yourself falling. I should be able to approach with due deference. I claimed my concept of romance was “evolved.” From what? From what TV teaches us. I can’t just be on the park bench on a fall day. I can’t just find myself in a fancy restaurant. Big dramatic professions often are ill-timed and ill-conceived. Grandpa’s dying sentiment about grandma only took 2 minutes to shoot and leaves out the handful of times he cheated on her.
It’s our habit to seek foolish deception. The facebook pictures or status updates tell a singular story. Hopefully, you’re well into adulthood before you start to appreciate what was really going on between your parents growing up. Our favorite books and movies often have a relationship we’d kill to find ourselves in, danger and dragons be damned. We’re encouraged to not just seek, but perpetuate the story of what togetherness means by way of norms and hotly contest challenges as to what is “proper,” even moral, regarding deviations or expansions.
I claimed there was romance in depicting the ideal even if it can never be achieved. This is half right. My mind shoots to Before Sunrise. The 2 hour conversation and meander about Paris between 2 people who deeply connect. You can do that. I’ve been in conversations like that. I’ve stared longingly into eyes, arms around each other's waists, as the perfect amount of rain was coming down on our heads. I’ve found myself musing well into the morning with a cute acquaintance or ex-girlfriend. It can be the happenstance of the setting or you can put in a little effort and create a scene, but it can happen. But unlike the movies, you can’t just keep rewatching for the same feeling. You can’t pause on the unremitting excited tension. You can’t rely on the, “Yes, yes, a thousand times yes!”
What a tragedy if you had to, no? The stale imaginative cliche on repeat? Sounds like torture. Life is more spontaneous, if you let it. Life lets you go even deeper. Life let’s you in on romance at all hours of the day and night if you’re willing to look and appreciate.
I claimed there’s romance in honesty. Well shit! You could be the most unabashed romantic person who’s ever lived to the degree you seek to be honest. I remember just sitting in the car coming back from errands or something with Kristen just talking. Didn’t have to go inside. Didn’t have anywhere else to be. Just sitting in the car talking about whatever at the time in the parking space. For me, romance out the whazoo. Couldn’t care to be anywhere else. Couldn’t think to want to talk to anyone else. Don’t give a shit about the topic. My general sense that tries to agitate or joke is taking a backseat to making sure car time rides as long as it can.
Or I think about the kinds of romance you can only experience within yourself. I watch a ton of TV shows, and inevitably there’d be a few Kristen liked as well. So I’d save em. Pretty straight forward courtesy thing many people do. But who talks about the romance in smiling to yourself every time she’s disappointed The Mindy Project didn’t go into their whole song for the intro music? The reliable sad, “Noooooo!” as it gets cut short. Romance people. Internalized appreciation for habits that have you feeling closer even if they’d never suspect something so “stupid” could make you feel that way.
Let’s take a breath and say out loud this isn’t a sappy round-about shot to woo her. If I’m gonna talk romance, I can only speak to what I’ve known.
For as much as I don’t believe in marriage or how people employ love and massively over blow in their whinging about sex, the romance quotient in me peaks when I see people I really like seem to really like each other. I don’t root for my friend’s marriages to fail. I think some ineffable marriage-esc thing is going on by such badass people finding and relating to each other and for one reason or another we keep picking the stupid options to celebrate it. Sure, there’s a level of romance in your picture together, but a facebook or Instagram world is a commodified world. What you have shouldn’t be passed around the trading floor.
As hard as it can be to cast the right actors with the right chemistry and experience to make you truly believe they’re falling in love in between every shout of, “Cut!” to conjure that kind of magic in the real world is a significantly greater feat. I had a professor once talk about how groups of friends all come up in school together, all sleep around with each other, and then decide to pair off around or after graduation. The class looked at him like he was crazy, but goes to show you a generational divide because I understood just fine. We’re constantly probing for that “spark” or memory that reinforces ideas about our own special place and the people we’ve met. No shame in going through 6 of “the one’s” friends, at least they retain the title.
I suppose that has to serve as well as it can as my transition to help explain my approach to relationships being open. It doesn’t hurt me the idea that you could be out making movie moments with other dope ass people. I want as many as I can get too. But of course the whole thing falls apart when your metrics for truth and appreciation don’t line up. How many times does the story break down with lines like, “If you truly loved me…” or “I deserve more!” like they’re negotiating the size of a piece of cake or pay at the end of the day.
For me, I think you deserve everything you’re capable of seeing, good and bad. If you feel doubts about your relationship rising up and pretend otherwise, you don’t get to be shocked when your spouse doubts it harder and moves on. You deserve to be hurt and confused and made to feel the smallest you’ve ever felt because an honest assessment of humanity and relationships guarantees it’s the people you grow closest to that are going to get you there. And right here, in the worst feelings, after all the time and risk, if your core is truly romantic, you accept that’s what it is and fall as fast and far as you can into the pit of despair together.
That takes balls. That takes a kind of work and perspective that jettisons out to space the moment the expectant and reluctant child shows up to press the play button on the Disney fantasy they’ve fashioned their life after. Everyone in your life will throw up their hands to keep you from looking beyond the screen as well.
People don’t want to believe they're absolutely not special AND the most special thing that someone has ever laid eyes on. It’s a give and take. Otherwise you get creepers idolizing and obsessing and people retreating into protective shells. To conceive of yourself as capable of turning any and every moment into something romantic is absolutely foreign to people as far as I can tell. From the hug while she’s chopping vegetables to the messages on the bathroom mirror to just knowing that eventually even after the fight you’re going to hear their key in the door coming home, your life can be one of the greatest romance stories ever told if you just learn how to appreciate it!
It’s the romantic in me that still knows who I am and what I strive for in relating to people. I don’t expect you to go out of your way and constantly reassure me we’re still good for each other. I don’t need gifts and a million pictures together. It’s like recognizing like. I see you over there knowing I’m the only mother fucker in the world who’s me and I’ll be damned if I ever figure out how I managed to find your cool ass to hang around. Also, we both ain’t shit, isn’t that great!? Our genitals aren’t magic! We’re insecure ignorant monkeys that sorta got our pants on today! How better to celebrate our bizarre and rare circumstances than with patience and forgiveness and acceptance? Instead we pursue the fantasy which doesn’t require those ingredients.
The drama in my words and exuberance with which I pursue my goals screams a romantic spirit. The deep longing I have to see everyone I’ve ever given a shit about prosper and cheerlead for what I’ve felt so deeply in the past keeps the fire under my ass and song in my heart. How does one weather the storm of despair if not for an intensely ingrained focus on an ideal? To then seek an honest assessment of what fell short that might prove worthy of a pause, not capsizing. I want so much for you to find the romance of a deep appreciation for the souls in the room. So much crap fades away if you can get there. Everything else opens up.
