Mills & Boons has destroyed us…
I used to think I knew what I wanted from a relationship. You know, the way everyone thinks that they know how they would act and how they would like to be treated if they were ever with someone. I think we get into relationships with some preconceived ideas and some of those ideas are conceived courtesy of stuff like Mills & Boons and All My freakin Children...
The realities are often very different to the lovely rose-tinted view we get of the world through the eyes of writers and screenplay people. 
I think you will be very surprised if you take a step back after you have been with someone for a while and look at what you have compared to what you thought you always wanted/needed/expected from a relationship.
For example, what I think about romance has changed. And in truth, our relationships change. It's called growing up! My relationship has changed. You know, how comfortable we are with each other has changed, how familiar we are has changed. Some standards have changed (or just dropped, unlike the toilet seat, which I no longer speak of. I might have a nervous breakdown if I think about it anymore…).
The changes will happen whether you want them to or not. I realise that I developed crazy fantasies while I was growing up, or whenever romantic entanglements become important to me, about love and romance. You pick up that stuff when you watch TV and when you read stupid books and when you talk to deluded people (who are reading those books and watching that TV) who would like you to think they are having those fairytale romances.
That is why I think that Mills & Boons has done for romance what porn has done for what men think is a woman’s idea of good sex (it’s not good, for the sheltered few of you who, uhm, haven’t read Mills & Boons).
Simple things like doing romantic stuff (or not doing it) can turn into full scale, open warfare in relationship. You know what I'm talking about. I was wondering whether it had anything to do with those ideas I had about being romantic and romance in a relationship.
I always thought that you should make an effort and show the one you're with, in as many ways as you can, that you really dig them. 
You see, I like to keep things interesting from time to time, well I try to. I think it's a really important part of being with someone, no matter how long you are together, that they know you are hot for them.
Our better halves/quarters in turn, are supposed to love it, and rave about it, and tell all their friends and love you forever... This is one of the ideas I got from the accursed Mills & Boons and The Bold and Beautiful etc...
A little while ago I was feeling kinda down because my guy, whom though I love with every cell in my body, (even when I hate him and I want to scratch his eyes out) just never seemed into any of the romantic things I like and he never seemed excited about it. So I thought about scratching his eyes out a lot of the time.
So being despondent, I stopped doing little things for him for a while after the one-too-many-eth time he didn’t even bat an eyelid when I planned something for him. Do you know how freakin difficult it is to get into stay-up pantyhose and suspenders after a shower, in Durban humidity???
But I realised that just because he doesn’t show it the way I think he should, or say what I want him to, doesn’t mean that he isn’t romantic or that I should stop doing things I enjoy doing. I do those things because he makes me want to do those things for him. My ideas about romance have changed.
I think that there is romance in being picked up from work when your car is in the shop and you work forty km’s out of the way. There is romance in someone taking the time to think of something you like to eat and then cooking it for you from scratch, and there is romance in your guy carrying a heavy bag for you… In short, you can find it anywhere.
That’s why those stupid ideas are so dangerous. So you feel a little down when they don’t pop a vein from excitement if you plan a whole fun game evening or treasure hunt with you as the prize. That doesn’t mean they don’t like it.
If they are conscious you can pretty much accept that they appreciate it on some level. Don’t let anyone or anything prescribe your concept of romance, and you can blame those damn Mills & Boons and the like, and godforsaken Days of our Lives for a lot of those notions. Your man will not (and should not) wear an open-chested, white Cheese-cloth shirt and come gliding through your balcony door to ravage you without notice or because you baked him a pie! This is apparently some writer’s idea of hot…not mine.
You see what this guy is wearing...??? Who wants that???
*FYI: They still sell these by the thousands...Someone's reading 'em.
My advice is that before you start burning your guy's photos, just consider that our ideas about how to love someone shouldn't exist to the exclusion of the realities and what it is actually like to be in love and in a relationship with someone. Being in a relationship is a lot like growing up. You expect a whole lot of things to happen and have a whole lot of ideas about what it will and should feel like, but it is very different when it actually happens.
How things really are is what counts and that you feel loved and good about where you are.
Lots a lurve
Fifi
Ps: Ahem, a word of disclaimer though: if he is treating you like crap and you don't feel loved, feel free to make him feel as loved as a butt with a stiletto sticking out of it could feel. I hear a bit of a run up helps…
