Today, just for fun, I decided to take a look around the internet and see other people’s suggestions and advice on the topic of how to be romantic. What I found simply horrified me. To be fair, some of the advice given wasn’t bad, consisting of tips and ideas for romantic things one could do. The best one that I saw even gave more generalized advice such as, “Be surprising” (more on that later), but by and large the advice was not very good at all.

I think that my personal favourite came as a tip concerning romantic pet names. The article recommended that you play with a variety of cutesy syllables such as “pook”, “wee”, “ums” and the like to render pet names along the lines of “Pookie Wookie Sweetie Pie”. To quote my wife: “If you EVER call me that, I WILL kill you” (emphasis hers). Strangely, I’m not feeling the love…

The basic problem that I see is this: it is the underlying assumption that men are idiots, and that women must simply accept that as fact. This is not how to be romantic. Romance is not a “thing you do”, or a set of tips and techniques guaranteed to “get the girl”. Rather, being romantic is a way of thinking. It is an attitude of loving consideration and attention to detail directed toward the object of your affections. At risk of sounding overly Zen, it is a state of being.

The romantic is one who wants only happiness for their lover, and ideally to be the source of that happiness. To this end the romantic will be constant in his desire to assess her needs, and in doing so, finding ways of meeting those needs in new and surprising ways. I say surprising because the attention to detail that is invested in even the simplest of acts will create beautiful moments from even the most mundane of needs.

As an example, let’s say that one day your lover declares that she is hungry. You, as the attentive lover, knows that she has a taste for MacDonald’s Cheese Burgers. The unromantic man might pop out for a moment and get her said cheesburger (what a nice guy), whereas you, the incurable romantic, would go the extra step, and make it something special. You might run around to the grocery store, and assemble the required ingredients for a home made gourmet cheeseburger, complete with seasoned fries and a nice red wine. Having made the burgers yourself, you would then serve it to her either in bed or on the couch, with the TV a quiet mummer in the background, and candles aglow.

You would make her feel like a princess.

As lovely a tip as that is, it is more than that: it is the embodiment of the incurable romantic’s attitude, and how he approaches every moment of his life. He is a devoted partner and an attentive lover, who is constantly using intellect and imagination to sweeten the daily existence of his beloved, and bring her such joy as can only be found in his company.

If you want to know how to be romantic, it can be summed up as follows: dare to be devoted. Never fear the opinions of lesser men when you say, “Just a minute, I have to call her first.”, for lesser men cover the face of the earth, content in their mediocrity. The romantic man will rest, secure in her arms long after they have gone, strong in the knowledge that while they are many, you are unique, and the only one worthy of the attentions of the lady fair that you have so assiduously wooed, now and for all time. And that, my friend, is the essence of how to be romantic. Let no one ever tell you differently.