Flowers are far more romantic than women realize. Let me explain.
I recently went to buy my wife some lovely flowers “just because”. But as I stood there wondering which ones to choose I realized I was feeling very self-conscious and uneasy. I later reflected on my negative feelings and wanted to know why I felt so uncomfortable about buying flowers for my wife.
As I was standing there, it felt like I was standing in line waiting to buy a porno magazine and all the world was judging me. It was that type of feeling! I could literally taste the cortisol blast; that uncomfortable feeling that cortisol brings with it every time that things are not right and something has to change. But why was my body getting injected with cortisol just because I was buying my wife a bunch of flowers? The answer lies in the number one thing that produces cortisol levels to rise in men – shame. But why was I feeling shame over buying flowers?
The shame came not from my reason to buy the flowers. The shame came because I wondered what other people would think about WHY I was buying flowers. After I had chosen the ones I wanted, I had to stand there and wait to be served.
This was the worst. Just being on show to the world. Buying flowers it seemed was a no-win situation for me.
My “masculinity” was taking a hit because I obviously needed something else other than me to impress my woman. Was that what the other guys were thinking? Were they walking past the flowers not giving them a second look because they were so manly enough they didn’t need flowers?
But there was a further problem. Forget about the men, what were the women thinking? In my mind, there were a series of accusations reverberating at 150 decibels.
“He’s obviously in the dog house.”
“He must have done something really bad to the woman in his life and now he’s trying to crawl back!”
“I know what he’s trying to get tonight”.
All of these negative judgments were way too much. Should I dump the flowers back in the bucket and run?
The attendant took my money before I could bolt and so now I had to turn and run the gauntlet of all the faces about to judge me through the shopping mall and out into the car park. But as I turned and started walking the quickest, humanly shortest route back to my car everything changed. Every single woman I passed, noticed the flowers I was carrying and then looked at me and smiled.
It didn’t matter the age of the woman. Every woman that looked at me was drawn to the flowers and then made eye contact with me with a genuine smile. And that’s when it dawned on me.
I had it all wrong.
None of the women were judging me harshly for buying the flowers. If their non-verbal language was anything to go on, it was just the opposite. In fact, it was as if every woman I passed got some benefit from the flowers I bought my wife. They smiled and all seemed to experience a little satisfaction from my simple act of buying someone else a bunch of flowers.
I smiled back at each one. By the time I reached my car my face muscles were cramped from so many reciprocal smiles. But something else happened.
The cortisol had evaporated from my body. I no longer felt a sense of shame. In fact, it was almost turning into confidence. But the best was yet to come. When I presented them to my wife, I got the best smile of all. This was the smile I was after. The joy the flowers bought her was something my male brain will never be able to comprehend.
But even though I can’t understand it, it doesn’t mean I will stop doing it. I don’t understand a lot of things, like electricity, but I still use them every day.
The learning point for men is important. Romantic gestures need to be re-framed in a man’s mind. Being romantic does not mean you are not “manly”. Being romantic shouldn’t raise your stress and cortisol levels. In fact, buying a bunch of flowers for your woman needs to make you feel really, really good.
Why? Because it makes a woman feel really good. It brings her so much pleasure. You don’t have to understand it, just accept it. You just have to push through that initial cortisol wall and do it. Because when you hand over those flowers, you become more of a man in her eyes than you will ever understand.
The learning point for women in all this is quite simple. Some men innately can feel shame when they perform romantic gestures. It’s just part of their male DNA. So when your man does a romantic gesture for you and buys you a bunch of flowers, understand that he has had to endure a cost far more than the price of the flowers. He has had to go against his instincts which are shouting at him that he doesn’t need to buy those flowers. He has to endure the shame his inner voice is creating just to be seen with flowers in hand.
But he ends up doing it anyway. Why? Because he just loves seeing the joy a little bit of romance brings you.
That’s why flowers are so romantic.
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Previously Published on romanceisalive.com
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