It’s an old cliché that women want to be swept off their feet. We want to know that we’re loved so deeply that our men would do almost anything, including risking their jobs and their safety as they fly through the streets of the city, desperately trying to make it to the airport on time to tell us that they are, in fact, in love with us. Right? That’s what Hollywood tells us, anyway. And a whole lot of other romantic fiction, too, for that matter.
We love grand gestures. The long-planned, well-executed, grand, romantic gestures that prove their hearts are fully in it. Don’t we?
Some of us do. Or maybe even most of us do, some of the time. But I’m convinced, despite the old Hollywood cliché, that what most women want is someone to show up in the little, everyday ways that make life just a little sweeter, one small gesture at a time. Romance is really the little things that whisper to our hearts that we are loved. It’s the inconsequential, thoughtful things that let us know our men are there, watching - really watching - and listening to us.
It's when my husband replaces my towel or walks to the end of the road with me in the evening, barefoot, to get some fresh air because I asked him to. It’s him cleaning MY desk in MY office just because he knew it would make me feel less stressed. It's him making sure I have time to sip a cup of tea before bedtime, unbothered by children or chores. These things are not only unexpected, they’re unnecessary, which is what makes them so special. He doesn’t have to do these things; he’d still be an excellent husband if he didn’t. But he does do them, and that will always be more romantic to me than a one-time ordeal that he went all-out on.
I can appreciate a weekend getaway or a nice, big bouquet of various, showy flowers as much as the next woman. But I feel most loved knowing my husband understands that I’d just as soon spend a weekend doing fun things with the kids and that I prefer a small bouquet of carnations over any other flowers.
I'm not knocking big gestures. They can be a solid measurement of a man's commitment to showing a woman he cares. But it doesn't mean he'll be there ten years later, doing the little things he doesn't have to do to show he still cares. That, to me, is romance.
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