We all love the grand, romantic gesture. We sigh when Lloyd Dobler plays his boombox for Diane in “Say Anything.” We swoon when Rhett Butler sweeps Scarlett O’Hara into his arms and carries her up the stairs. We melt when Richard Gere overcomes his fear of heights and climbs the fire escape to be with Julia Roberts at the end of “Pretty Woman.”
But what about the grand, romantic gesture that comes about for all the wrong reasons – for instance, a cheating spouse who buys his wife a huge bouquet of roses, not to woo her, but to assuage his own guilt? Call me a hopeless romantic, but that’s a consolation prize that no wife wants to receive.
Then there’s the grand romantic gesture gone completely wrong. Consider the poor guy who tucks an engagement ring into his girlfriend’s soufflé. She accidentally bites into the ring, and breaks a tooth. Ouch. Now Mr. Romantic is looking at a dental bill (and a possible lawsuit) instead of a wedding ceremony. Or what about the guy who proposes to his intended on one knee, in front of an entire restaurant full of people… or hires a plane to fly a banner saying “Will You Marry Me?”… only to be turned down by his beloved with a shrug and a “Sorry, no thanks.”
Maybe the best grand, romantic gestures… aren’t. After all,cliché or not, it’s the little things that mean the most. A post-it note that says ‘I love you’ tucked into a loved one’s lunch bag. A plate of homemade cookies. A single wildflower, hand-picked and offered spontaneously, can mean much more than the biggest, most expensive bouquet. Because when a gesture is made for no reason other than to say “I love you. I care about you. I’m thinking of you,” it means so much more than a sky-writing airplane or a twenty-piece orchestra playing her favorite song – because it comes from the heart.
And that’s the most grand, romantic gesture of all.
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