The Hopeless Romantic

[This entry was inspired by my awesome blogger penpal Amanda. See the post that started it all here.]

I have never considered myself a romantic. Romance. I’m not even sure what the term means. When I hear it, the first things that pop to mind are clichés: heart-shaped boxes of chocolate; clasped hands and deep, meaningful gazes across candlelit tables at restaurants shot in soft focus featuring burgundy velour and dark wood paneling; long walks on the beach at sunset; pina coladas; getting caught in the rain.

None of these things are inherently bad. I like chocolate, especially the salty kind. I suppose, given the right context and circumstances, clasping hands with my … my lover (another troubling term) and staring deep into his eyes could make sense (although preferably not in a place with décor reminiscent of a fancy steakhouse, I remain firm on that point). If I were in the vicinity of a body of water and the sun started sinking into it and if I were with a guy, I wouldn’t be all like “Whoa, we’d better take shelter somewhere until the last vestiges of pink and orange have been blotted out by darkness.” No. No way. And pina coladas are delicious. And getting caught in a summer rain shower could be fun if you’re not on your way to a job interview, or halfway home from the market lugging five bags of groceries.

So what’s the problem? The problem is that lately I’ve been asked whether I consider myself a romantic, and to what extent romance is important to me.

How romantic are you?
1. I love lots of romance, it is a necessity for me to feel loved
2. I am romantic, but do not require it
3. I am occasionally romantic
4. I don't consider myself a romantic person
5. _________________________________

Every time I’m hit with this question, I cringe. True, option #4 corresponds with my opening statement, but it still seems wrong for me. I imagine it is the choice a robot would make, or a fish. I don’t like #3 because it sounds too much like option #4, but with brief, lucid flashes of sweet thoughtfulness emerging from an otherwise cold, limp norm. Option #2 has a hint of resignation about it. Option #1 sounds too demanding. My tendency is to go for #5 and try to unpack as much as I can in 200 characters or less.

The other day I was discussing my romantic misgivings with a male friend who is like a brother to me. Part of what makes him like kin is that we can only discuss matters of the heart via electronic communication even though we could just as easily do so face-to-face. After angsting about all of the above and then some, he replied:

Marvin says:
Do you like flowers?

Kim says:
Oh yes! I like those.

Marvin says:
Then you are romantic. Have you ever given someone flowers?

Kim says:
Well, yes. Although we were kind of fighting at the time.

Marvin says:
If the flowers were to make up for something, then you lose points.
In any case, I pity the fool who tries to romance you.

Granted, that last comment is in keeping with the often savage tone of our banter. But it still made me question myself. Am I really that emotionally stunted? Cold? Empty? Brutal?

I would like to think that I am none of those things. I mean, I’ve been brought to tears by TV commercials, never mind full-blown narratives with actual character development to further lure me in and crush me. I am consistently undone by Elbow’s rendition of The Loneliness of a Tower Crane Driver performed with the BBC Concert Orchestra. I once moved to Australia to be with a guy I’d known for a week. It didn’t work out, but there were no hard feelings in the end. As with most men I’ve been involved with, we were two good people who weren’t so good together. And yes, I have a little cache of mushy fantasies that I never tell anyone about. They’re all swimming around my head as I write this, but don’t ask me to articulate them.

I’m convinced my upbringing has something to do with my ambivalence towards romance. As any armchair psychologist will tell you, our blueprint for relating to others comes from our parents. And mine never really exhibited what might be commonly considered romantic behavior. Not in front of us kids anyway. As mentioned in an earlier post, candlelight didn’t figure prominently in our household. I have no memories of them slow dancing in the living room after dinner to the strains of “Three Times a Lady”. I don’t recall my father ever bringing my mother flowers, although one year for Valentine’s Day he did buy her hubcaps.

This year they will celebrate their 40th wedding anniversary. And from what I can tell, they are happy. There is love between them; love and a bunch of other stuff that accumulates after four decades of togetherness. My friend Kurt refers to his parents as The Bickersons, and I’ve started doing the same with mine. They drive each other nuts, but at least some of the squabbling is comedic. My father is the instigator, and my mother’s role is to react. It’s this tendency towards needling that has influenced how I behave with those I like, as well as those I love. In the monkey-see-monkey-do fashion of children, I have learned that ribbing and zinging are signs of affection.

This hasn’t always served me well. People don’t always get my jokes. Admittedly, a fair number of my attempts at humor fall flat. For example, an ex of mine had interesting hands. They were kind of meaty and I liked them. He once showed me a shot of himself taken in an exotic locale, shortly after emerging from a long session in a hot tub. He was wearing a long-sleeved white shirt and his hands appeared swollen and red, dangling as though photo-shopped from a different body. I took all this in, laughed and said something like “Look at you: Fat Hands McGhee!”

I was only teasing. His last name isn’t McGhee, and his hands aren’t really fat. But he was so hurt, because as a child he’d battled weight issues and there I was, apparently suggesting some kind of residual chubbiness. Not at all my intention. I was eventually able to convince him of this, but there are few things as unromantic as vigorous backpedaling after a joke gone wrong. (Interestingly, he later started referring to himself as Fat Hands McGhee, and took to enthusiastically slamming tabletops as the signature move for his adopted moniker.)

Yet humor isn’t in and of itself anti-romantic. Laughing together can be sexy. I guess humor becomes problematic when used as a shield against vulnerability. And maybe that’s what gets me about romance: being vulnerable. When you get past all the prepackaged Hallmark sap and Hollywood cheese that I find so easy to mock, romantic gestures, be they grand or small, are always about pinning your heart to your sleeve. We’ve all been on the giving or receiving end of a failed romantic offering, and it can hurt like blazes.

There is more to a relationship than romance, of course. If someone offered me the choice of writing me a poem, or helping me to paint my apartment, I’d be shoving a paintbrush into his hands faster than he could say, “Roses are red, violets are blue.” Mutual respect, trust, friendship, loyalty, teamwork, shared vision and goals and whole lot of other stuff are, as far as I’m concerned, necessary components for a lasting relationship.

But … all right, yes … romance can make it all that much sweeter. And yes, I’ll admit it: I do like flowers and holding hands and thoughtful gestures both grand and small.

Just don’t tell anyone, okay?

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