Rant Fever 3.0

Granted, opportunities for sweeping romantic gestures don’t often present themselves. Even the real life Hugh Grant isn’t nearly as suave and charming as the movie Hugh Grant.  But when there are serious cracks in a relationship, sitting and watching a romantic movie is only going to turn those cracks into gaping holes.  

To be honest, I just thought this was something I’d have to get over.  I knew that I would never wake to the sound of pebbles clinking against my window.  I’d never find Romeo climbing up my balcony, or ride off into the sunset with Prince Charming.

But there was something I never thought of before.  Consider this scene from one of my favorite romantic movies, The Mirror Has Two faces.  Granted, the ending is cheesy, over the top, and as likely to happen as Superman stopping by to take me for a quick flight over the city. But there’s a lesson to be learned here.  At the beginning of the film, Streisand’s character states that, unlike in the movies, we don’t hear a symphony every time we kiss.  Yet, at that final moment, someone just happens to be playing Puccini out their window.  Yes, it was dumb luck. But even without the song, the moment was still pretty darn epic.

The great romantic moments in life aren’t always planned, they usually just happen. Sometimes, the subtlety of a gesture is what makes it truly genuine, and taking advantage of certain circumstances (the night, the rain, the music from a window) can turn something small into something grand. The best part is, the memories then build into a wonderful montage that rivals anything Hollywood might throw at us. And since the movie romance doesn’t go far beyond 90 minutes, the gestures we see on the screen can only ever happen once for these characters. In real life, the good moments get to be replayed, just like the little inside jokes you accumulate together.

I knew he was different the first time I watched a romantic movie without him.  Where in the past I might have thought to myself “gosh, why can’t he do romantic crap like that for me?” I’d instead find myself thinking, “that’s just like that one thing he does.”  I didn’t find myself longing for some other prince. I instead found myself thinking how much the prince in the movie reminds me of the prince in my life.