February is a month for melting away the winter blues with some red hot romance. So I asked about 50 men and women to share three things: memories of their most romantic moments, their biggest flops and romantic dreams waiting to be realized.
“For our 5th anniversary, my wife gave me a coffee table book of the 500 greatest golf holes. As I paged through the pictures there was a card marking the 12th hole of Augusta National. The card was an invitation to play Augusta National, which is the dream of every golfer.”
What a cool gift. That was the most extravagant story. Several told of touching marriage proposals:
“After he asked me to marry him he gave me a puzzle that had a promise written on the back of it. I had to put the puzzle together to retrieve the message. ‘…Life is sometimes a puzzle and we will have to work hard to piece things together. I promise you that I will do my part! Let us never give up putting our puzzle together…’”
A vast majority of the most memorable romantic moments, however, were simple things made meaningful by their thoughtfulness: putting toothpaste on a toothbrush every night, helping with laundry or the dishes, making arrangements for a babysitter, posting love notes around the house.
• My husband brought me flowers and brownies he made from scratch and left them in my classroom.
• She spent an entire day from dawn to dusk with me and dogs doing the thing I love and enjoy the most - hunting pheasants.
• My husband picked a nice little bouquet of roses from our yard, arranged them and had them waiting for me along with a nice clean house.
I received dozens of responses and most of them cost little or nothing.
Among the most common romantic flops revealed were “dates” in front of the TV watching sports, obligatory gifts like flowers or chocolate, and gifts the giver enjoys more, like Nascar tickets or kitchen appliances. I once gave my husband nice sheets for his birthday -- the “sheetiest” gift ever.
The Archie Bunker award for worst romantic gesture goes to the guy who said he would propose using the same engagement ring his previous fiance had returned to him when they broke up.
Another romantic flop was just plain sad. My friend opened a fortune cookie at a Chinese restaurant that read, “Will you marry me.” The poor guy at the table text to her had special ordered that cookie to complete his Valentine’s Day proposal. The waitress delivered it to the wrong table.
Survey participants were fairly unanimous about the most desired romantic gestures. Topping this list, for men and women, is a surprise, pre-arranged trip or outing. Other popular gestures include a surprise clean house, a date doing something other than dinner and a movie, or anything homemade.
One man said the most romantic thing his wife can do is make intimacy a priority. I suspect many others would embrace this honest answer.
A couple things about this exercise surprised me. The response rate was really high, nearly 75 percent. People clearly enjoyed thinking about and sharing their romantic memories.
I didn’t expect so many men to respond. And I was surprised by the overall simplicity of the things people found most touching or desirable.
We’re told that men are from Mars and women are from Venus. But when it comes to romance, it seems both genders stand squarely on Earth. What we long for most are thoughtful expressions that demonstrate our loved one knows, understands and appreciates us.
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