Life
Why Your Actual Love Is More Romantic Than Movies
Movie romance is overrated, and most of the time, your real life, every day relationship is much, much more romantic than anything you've ever seen on film. Sure, people kiss in the picturesque rain after grand gestures and pronouncements of love have been made on screen, but you're snuggled up on the couch with a much smaller gesture being made: the gesture of presence. Yep, as it turns out, just being there with your significant other is much more romantic than any song and dance or flash mob or run through the airport that the movies can come up with. Because after all the showiness of Hollywood romance, you never really know if the same loved up drama queens are going to be around at sweat-pants o'clock, which is when the real romance starts.
We don't need horse drawn carriage rides or boom boxes held to the heavens to experience romance in our every day relationships, because being in love is romantic enough without all the added accoutrements. Sure, there might be immense moments in a real life relationship, but what gives love its power isn't in bended knees and breathless announcements. It's in boring stuff, like listening to your partner rant about a work problem, or leaving tiny post it notes with rude jokes on them in unexpected corners. Here are some reasons why your ordinary, real life relationship is way more romantic than the movies:
1. Because Just Turning Up Is Romantic
The movies would have you believe that the most romantic things are momentous and earth shattering, like public singing to proclaim love, or sweet nothings written in the sky. But that stuff is transient. It happens, then it stops happening. True romance is turning up for your partner, through thick and thin, regardless of how grand the occasion.
2. Because Being Best Buds Is Better Than Being Swept Off Your Feet
I'm sure having someone throw you back off your heels and Hollywood kiss you makes for a lovely moment. Or having someone pull out every chair and open every door. But those sorts of things are all surface. How much more romantic is it to be in love with your best friend? As someone who is lucky enough to be shacked up with her best bud, I can tell you it's much more wonderful and romantic than any fairytale you see on screen.
3. Because If You Can Be Romantic In Sweats, Who Needs Anything Else?
Anyone can feel romantic when they're apologizing in the rain. Or when they're serenading you beneath a window. Or sweeping you around a beautiful ballroom. But feeling romantic in sweats, hair messed, scoffing chocolates: now that's something truly special!
4. Because Comfort Is More Romantic Than Awkward Public Proclamations
I don't know about you, but having someone do something ridiculously opulent like come into my place of work and shut down my office just to say something romantic is front of everyone sounds pretty mortifying. As does having to stand in the rain, roll about in wet sand, or any other kind of uncomfortable elemental thing that's supposed to signify romance. I would much rather feel an arm throw itself sleepily over me in the middle of the night as the person I love snores in my ear.
5. Because Big Things Can Come In Small Packages
Romantic love in the movies is always about big things. It's about flying across the country just to tell someone you love them, or some other kind of song and dance spectacle. But sometimes big things can come in small packages. Like when you're sick and your partner brings home a packet of your favorite tea. Or when you fold down corners in the IKEA catalog of things you think might look nice in your shared apartment. All these tiny little things can be far more meaningful and romantic than any movie grand gesture.
6. Because This Is Really Happening
We call the things we see in movies "fairytales" for a reason. Because they're not real, and the make believe endings of love stories aren't true to life. But what is really happening to you in real life is just as magical — not because it's fanciful, but because it's REAL. That's what makes it so great.
