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I have always been a fan of romantic stories and movies.
I bought into every fairy-tale and every romantic comedy that there is always a happy ending. I believed that even if two people hated each other at the beginning that somehow they would find common ground and end up together.
I always wanted to be the girl that a man realized was the “love of his life.”
I wanted someone to run through an airport and buy a last-minute ticket just to tell me they love me after making me feel like he could live without me.
I was willing to endure the hurt in the beginning if it meant that we would be together and happy in the end. I always thought I was just waiting for my own fairytale love story to begin.
But, reality set in.
As my own relationships progressed, I found them to be less romantic than I dreamed of while watching the movies. I expected flowers and to be swept off my feet. I thought I would receive gifts all the time and constantly surprised in a grand display of affection and adoration.
What I found was romance by a different name.
I realized that for me romance could be simply feeling considered and thought about.
I experienced small meaningful gestures from men. They weren’t grand things that everyone could point to and say, wow, he really loves her. They were small things that by knowing them, I understood them to be gestures of love.
One boyfriend would make sure to pick me up regardless of what he was doing. He didn’t want me out by myself late at night. I would insist that I could get home on my own. He would leave his home and pick me up to take me home. Then, he would drive back to his own home. I felt cared for and protected.
In my other major relationship, he would often wander into the kitchen while I was cooking dinner and place his hand on my waist. Then, he would spin me around and we would slow dance to him humming off-key in my ear.
He would also shovel the snow before I had to get up to go to work to make sure I didn’t have a problem walking down the steps or on the sidewalk. One day, he got up at 5 a.m. to shovel the walk only for me to find out that I didn’t have to go to work because the job closed. I got up and made him some hot chocolate to warm him up and we spent the day watching movies in bed.
Throughout both relationships, I paid attention to the times my significant other did something uncharacteristically him and I categorized it as a romantic gesture. There were many, but to the naked eye or an outsider, they wouldn’t see what I saw nor felt what I felt.
My idea of romance changed over time.
I still love romantic stories and romantic movies, but they don’t define real-life love to me. I think real-life romance is much quieter. It’s romantic to have someone who shows up for you every day when they could be anywhere else doing anything else.
I cannot tell a lie. If someone ran through an airport for me, it would still be extremely romantic.
However, now, I would prefer it be because we are both late for a flight to a destination that we have been eagerly anticipating and we arrive hand-in-hand for another adventure spent together.
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This story has been republished to Medium.
Photo courtesy iStock Photo.