Romance me up!

Men aren't supposed to like romance, right? Well, that's the theory, anyway. In practice, men may not always like to call it romance (and hence identify ourselves as sissies), but men feel the same yearning to connect that women do, to give and receive physical expressions of love and to continue the rituals of courtship long after our commitment's been cemented.

In short, we want to romance you...and we secretly want you to romance us. But as you're probably well aware, it's within the finer points of love that gender differences rear our ugly heads. When men are asked to define romance, they typically use these words: mystery, intrigue, sensuality, lingerie, passion and neverending sex. A half dozen words - "I'm looking forward to making love" - will get our heart racing. The flowery stuff, the roses and candlelight, just isn't a guy thing. So skip the sweet little trappings and go for what's guaranteed to work, right?........Wrong!!

I think romance involves a quest, a quest for self-actualization. Until a man finds out who he is and what he needs from life, he can't really connect to another person as an equal. So, a relationship of great romance makes a man coming to his strength and fullness as a human being, and part of the reward for the fulfillment of that quest is a strong, equal life partner and perhaps it works the same for the woman? The old "I can't live without you" always seemed so weak to me. I like the more modern "I can make it without you, but just by existing you enrich my life so much I'll never want to."

One of my homeboy told me the story about how his most romantic moment came when he felt his wife finally understood what he needed in order to relax was a "time out". He works hard, long hours all day, every day, in addition to the child caring duties associated recently. Although this may seem to qualify as one of the more bizarre romantic gestures, for Charlie, it was actually what he wanted and even more than he realized he needed to romance him up.

As for me, "Go beyond the ordinary to achieve an extraordinary love", is what romance is. That's how I've imagined myself to be since I've read and heard the legendary love stories in my teen past. Perhaps, I'll live in the real world someday which is not perfect but as for now, I've my virtual, romantic, perfect wallsgreen:)