I’ll tell you a secret. I’m a fan of the romantic gesture. In my romances, that gesture tends to be something grand. A groveling confession of love in the middle of a ballroom or a reunion with a long, lost family member a heroine thought was gone forever, or even a beautiful gown or piece of jewelry. All that stuff is awesome in a romance novel. The bigger the gesture, especially from a withdraw type of hero, and the more meaning it holds as an expression of love that may not be able to be verbally expressed yet.
But romance in books is not romance in real life. To be honest with you, I’m a rather practical person. I prefer small and personally meaningful moments to the big ones that are showy. In fact, showy makes me nervous. If someone sang a song to me, I’d laugh at them. It’s weird. Don’t sing me a song, it’s just weird and way too, “look at me, I’m sooooo romantic”. But I’m sure there are people out there who love that for… some… reason.
Another example: lots of people like flowers. I don’t. Well, I do, but we have two cats and they are nosy and can’t leave flowers alone. This means when I receive flowers I have to spend the entire span of the flowers’ lives trying to find a place to hide them from the cats, cleaning up the flower water the cats got into and generally cursing at cats. My husband long-ago learned that flowers aren’t the best gift to me (although since they are more rare, I tend to like them more now… as long as I can find a place to hide them from the cats).
On the other hand, if he stops and gets me a Diet Coke and a yummy snack when I’m on a deadline, without asking, and just brings it to me? THAT is romantic. Those little things that say, “I’m thinking of you and what you need” have way more meaning to me.
So what about you? Are you a “romance novel gesture” kind of romantic or more like me?
