My relationship might be most romantic when it isn't
Thoughts on "romance" and definitions and connotations and personal values
Sometimes I think my relationship with Sean seems incredibly unromantic. We got close when I had a “thing” with his best friend. I cried about my ex-fiance during our first one-on-one hangouts. We finally went on a real date after I wrote a massive letter in the notes app of my phone… and handed it to him to read in my shabby kitchen while I busied myself at the counter. (I felt terribly awkward.) One of my favorite conversations was the devastating one where we acknowledged breaking up was a real possibility. Two years later we got engaged with a ring I knew he had—I’d ordered it online myself, actually—and his proposal lasted about five seconds. We got married on a beach ten feet away from little kids building sandcastles and middle-aged vacationers drinking beer. Our reception featured Chipotle takeout. Today we live in less than 70 square feet, manually change our toilet compost every three months, and (yes) use the aforementioned toilet in front of each other.
When I stack all these details up in a row, even I ask myself how the girl who so proudly wore “hopeless romantic” across her forehead ended up like this.
But I wonder only for a millisecond. I know the answer. She realized there were things more important than fairytale moments—she realized she’d grown up with a too-narrow view of “romantic” as something to strive for.
Of course, I can tell the story of Me and Sean in multiple ways. If I curate the right memories we sound much more traditionally romantic than we are… or much less. (That’s what’s happening, to a degree, in this piece’s opening paragraph.) Between hard discussions and talk of periods and back-and-forth on our dog’s pooping habits, we’ve also danced to hours of live music (life accomplishment: an older couple begging us not to leave because they thought we were lovely to see having fun together) and watched the sunrise from our camper van’s bed and shared handwritten poems. We might not wear wedding rings, but we have matching tattoos.
It’s more than presentation, though. I won’t argue fine points with an outsider about the least “Instagram worthy” parts of our relationship. I concur that plenty of who Sean and I are—both apart and together—isn’t a dreamy aesthetic.
But I will question exactly why we define “dreamy” and “romantic” that way.
It’s obviously romantic when my partner gives me flowers for no reason, right? Or when we share a bottle of wine on the beach at sunset or hold hands above the Grand Canyon. Those are moments straight out of a movie montage, the kind of scenes a director will use to show “these two people are in love”.
But to me? It’s also romantic—in a less fleeting, deeper way—when we hold hands through a horrible (wonderful) conversation about our value frameworks and priorities and whether we’re truly compatible to build the life we want together. It’s romantic when I tell Sean about the time my ex most hurt me (and neither of us like to imagine the other with anyone else) but the story brings us closer together because it is, palatable or not, part of me. It’s romantic when he supports me through chronic UTIs and a bladder surgery even though frequent talk of urination and finding a bathroom every hour isn’t what the average person would call a turn on.
I used to think romance and practicality were essentially opposites—if not actually mutually exclusive then still, at least, at odds. Surely a moment couldn’t hold both. Surely the mundane details of a shared life would eventually wash out the dreamy ones. Surely I’d have to choose.
But I haven’t. The most romantic parts of my life with Sean are the ones strangers don’t find romantic at all.
