Why women love romance (and why some men are so bad at it)

They’re both really attractive, in a cutesy kind of way. They’re meant to be together. We, mere strangers in a movie theatre, chomping popcorn like witless cud-chewing bovines, know they’re meant to be together. So why in the name of all things Jennifer Aniston don’t they know they’re meant to be together!

“Romance isn’t dead, or shouldn’t be” courtesy of musicalwds

Misunderstandings roll, cute things happen, zany best friends glide in and out, you check your watch, no CGI explosions occur (there might be the odd “humorous” fist fight) and finally these two lovable bright-toothed dimwits realize they were always meant to be together. What a relief for all of us. Now we can go home. The Rom Com is over, thank you very much and goodnight. But is that the end of it for you?

Romantic Comedies: The Dark Side!

Personally I feel all rom-coms should carry health warnings because of the testosterone-depleting effects they can have on men. Okay here’s a secret; I admit it. I have enjoyed the odd rom-com begrudgingly. Is that wrong?

But it seems these movies really could damage your relationships. Research has found that viewing a rom-com can make people feel less appreciative of their partner and less loving toward them (1). Expectations get unrealistically raised and reality bites and it isn’t sexy. But is this new?

Frog-kissing, slipper-fitting, castle-living fun

Popular media has always moulded notions of how romance and relationships “should” be. Traditional fairy tales, read literally, seem to propagate an idealized version of romance.

On cue with a little understanding from the beautiful girl our frog turns into a handsome prince with a private trust fund. Or the situation seems hopeless, all is chaos with wicked step sisters and the like, but somehow, through destiny, the prince finds his bride, the slipper fits, and everybody gets the “happily ever after” we all knew was coming.

But in real life the “princess” wonders why the “magic” so often happens in reverse. Kiss Prince Charming (plus a little more) and miraculously he’s transmuted into an uncommunicative, belching, couch-hogging frog. “Cinderella” takes to stalking “Prince Charming”, finds he’s married or as faithful as a rooster on heat and it all ends in tears. I don’t remember that fairy tale! So, unrealistic expectations aside where, if at all, is true romance in all of this?

Romance-the forgotten art

Genuine romance, as opposed to paid for at the movie theatre, shouldn’t be about holding perfectionist standards for our loved one or expecting smooth glamor now and always. Romantic feelings should be resilient and override the normal demands of life up to a point at least.

What is romance? You can have wonderful sex and friendship in your relationship but little or no romance. I think men fall for a woman romantically when she captures his imagination as well as his…err loins. And she will capture his imagination (as long as he has one) by responding to his romance.

So romance may be more likely to spark and burn alongside sex and friendship but somehow it’s more than those two things. A meal can be sustaining and satisfying but the “romance” of the meal is in its unique flavours.

It’s often said by women that men, most men, just aren’t romantic.

But I wonder whether this is really true.

I suspect men feel just as romantic but don’t always know how to communicate their romantic feelings. The flavor needs to be unlocked.

Men will just as often speak of love when honestly discussing their relationships. The idea that men only care about the lust part but not the deeper feelings associated with love is just not true. Romance is a feeling, a sense of unique connection with someone – a merging of spirits, but it is also a behaviour – a way of communicating. So you can feel loving and romantic but not necessarily know how to communicate that.

It’s about the gesture

I know a woman whose ex-boyfriend bought her an electric drill for her first birthday they were together. He’d assumed this would have more utilitarian value than a surprise weekend break or a painting and flowers. And he was right – an electric drill is more useful and will last longer. But romance is about:

• The gesture
• The unique symbolic meaning behind the gesture.

So what is the gesture, the meaning behind buying your loved one an electric drill? That you feel neighborly towards her? That you are a post feminist male? That the floorboards need aligning? We men might find it hard to comprehend that the less practical application a gift has the more romantic it can be.

In one survey nearly all the women sampled agreed that flowers meant more to them when they were given for no particular reason at all (2). Go figure! Or rather go buy some flowers! What makes it romantic is precisely that it doesn’t “do” anything, it represents something. It has symbolic meaning.

Here’s an important point. The guy who bought his woman an electric drill may have felt romantic toward her, so it wasn’t that he wasn’t romantic at heart it’s just that a central aspect of what romance really means to many women wasn’t on his radar.

Romance can be learned

Men may not stand around in locker rooms discussing the “lovely romantic gesture” their hot date made last night and guys don’t generally discuss rom-coms when they get together for a beer.

But the fact that men, okay some men cherish their women, love them passionately and actually like them too shows that romance is genuinely part of who they are and how they feel.

Many men are amazed how behaving more, just a bit more, romantically with a woman has such powerful affects. Romantic gestures and even words show:

• That you take the trouble to think about her and the two of you.
• That you are considerate and feel uniquely toward her.
• That however tough, manly, macho up-to-the-plate-stepping you are, you are able to be nurturing too.
• That you are able to think creatively.

Sure some men will learn to counterfeit romance in order to manipulate women, just as some women will counterfeit sexual interest in a man in order to manipulate him. Romance, to be genuine, needs to be congruent, a genuine sentiment.

These are and always will be those non transforming toads and the wicked witches of fairy tale lore.

But most people, women and men can feel true romantic sentiments and develop ways to genuinely communicate them outside of rom-com land.

Guys, if you’d like to know more about how to make yourself more attractive to women, see Mark’s course ‘10 Steps to Be Naturally Attractive to Women’.

(1) See: Volume 17 Numbers 3 & 4, 2007: IN SEARCH OF MY “ONE-AND-ONLY”:
ROMANCE-RELATED MEDIA AND BELIEFS IN ROMANTIC RELATIONSHIP DESTINY Bjarne M. Holmes Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh, UK
(2) A nationwide (U.S.A.) survey conducted in 1996 found that almost all women give an unexpected gift of flowers high marks for emotional impact. In the survey, conducted by Bruskin/Goldring Research for SAF, more than nine out of 10 women (94 percent) say that flowers mean the most when they receive them as a surprise.

Downloads Unwrapped January 2012

I used to write this section in our monthly Inspired Minds newsletter, but we figured it would be easier to read online, and all our blog subscribers would enjoy reading it too. At least I hope you do Read January’s Inspired Minds newsletter here.

Downloads Unwrapped – January 2012

Your life story matters

We all have a sense of narrative – a plot and characters. Some of these characters are ‘evil’, some are ‘good’, some are ‘heroic’. We can see patterns in our own lives, triumphs perhaps, and maybe the odd disaster or two. And how do you place yourself in your own life story? Hero or heroine? Victim? Villain, even? Or just a disinterested observer of life? I once asked a client to write down the story of her life as a story. She literally began with: “Once upon a time…” and then went on to describe all the ins and out of what had happened to her and what she had made happen throughout the years. I noticed that she herself featured in this story mainly as the ‘victim’ character. I asked her to write the same story out again, but this time from the point of view that she was the ‘heroine’. This exercise had an amazing effect on her.

She started to see herself and her life in a new, more positive light. She began to appreciate that there were times she had shown resilience, determination and courage, qualities she’d never seen in herself before. We are all surrounded by stories, on the news, in the gossip we hear, even TV plot lines. But the stories we tell ourselves about ourselves may be the most important of all. With this in mind, we’ve produced Your life story which should help you not only to see the narrative of your own life and the patterns of your choices and behaviour more clearly, but also to start to write a whole new plot if you choose.

Prime your mind to supercharge the placebo response

Placebo is immensely powerful. The key factor in whether, for example, an antidepressant works for someone (or not) seems to be whether they expect it to work (or not).⁽¹⁾ A placebo response is the expectation of future improvement or wellness. A placebo pill is generally an inert substance such as a sugar pill presented as an active medication so that the person taking it believes it to be a real medication and therefore expects it to work.

When someone gets better after taking a placebo, it doesn’t mean that their ailment was ‘all in the mind’. Expectations and mental and emotional processes do play an important rule in modulating things like the immune system and the pain response.⁽²⁾ However, it used to be thought that you had to believe that your medication was real in order for the placebo to get your psychological and or physiological healing systems into gear. That seemed logical. Only it isn’t true. Amazingly, it’s been found that knowing that what you are receiving is a placebo doesn’t necessarily mean it won’t work for you.⁽³⁾ The new Placebo primer download can help real medication work even better and be used to prime yourself to feel a certain way regardless of whether you are on medication or not. For example, if you want to be relaxed and comfortable at tonight’s social engagement then setting your mind to expect that is, in a way, using the placebo response. We are going to love getting the feedback for this session.

Kids who gain confidence gain all kinds of other benefits

Being an under confident child can prevent learning from being as quick or thorough as it could be. This is because anxiety and worry can crowd out reasoned thought and the acquisition of new information and skills. Add in the emotional fallout of low confidence – the way it prevents the child from feeling able to enjoy times with other children, the way it prevents children developing healthy self esteem, so making them feel not as good as others, or not able to achieve or expect the best for themselves in life – and you have a pretty sad situation. Children learn through story telling (as do adults, of course) and story telling around the camp fire is perhaps the oldest form of ‘psychotherapy’ there is. Stories are naturally hypnotic and can lay down healthy templates for the child’s development and wellbeing even when times get tough. The new Confidence for children is desig