Romancing the blog

She asked me once if I'm the romantic type and I said yes but unconventionally. I'm a sucker for romance if I'm really passionate about the person but I don't subscribe to the traditional notion of romance. For me romance should be full of surprises until to the point where even the traditional romantic effort becomes a surprise in itself. I don't believe in buying chocolates or roses for the girl I'm romancing but I would bake my own chocolate/pastries/cookies or fold origami roses for the girl I'm into. It's all about being creative, fresh and most importantly, sensitive to the person you're with. I prefer unplanned picnic by the lake or the countryside than a romantic candle-light dinner in a fancy French restaurant. It's not that I'm cheap but I believe the more you put into the romantic endeavor the more fulfilling and meaningful the relationship will be.

I think the key is to remember every little details about your partner and the surprises her later with romantic efforts that are closely related to the specific detail. One time a girl told me that she's having cramps and stomachache from PMS, so I had a bit of surprise ready for her when she came to see me. There awaited her when she arrived were a slice of cake with lighted candle and a note saying "Happy Monthly PMS: Do you think this is bad? Wait till you get hot flashes and osteoporosis when you hit menopause!" Okay, it's tacky and maybe slightly inappropriate but she did enjoy it at that time. Now that's my idea of romance! I'm hoping that Hallmark will pick up on it one of these days...

I just saw the movie "The Curious Case of Benjamin Buttons" and I love it. I think it's such an endearingly romantic movie, very unconventional in its way of conveying love on so many different levels. I'm just touched by how they just knew that they were meant for each other even when he's a 90-year old boy and she's a 10-year girl and how the love survives until the end when he's a senile baby and she's a 90-year old woman. I can't believe I've never read the short story before since I'm a fan of F. Scott Fitzgerald, especially his novel "The Great Gatsby." Now I have to go search the bookstore or the internet for the original story.

Speaking of true love waits, my all-time favorite romance novel has to be "Love in the Time of Cholera" by Gabriel Garcia Marquez. It's a story about searching and longing for that one true love all throughout our life when destiny decides in the end that the search is over and the two separated lovers who had first met when they were young are finally reunited after being apart for more than fifty years. In Malay we call that Cinta Abadi. If you're meant for each other not even time and disparate geography can stop the love from being realized. I just hope that I don't have to wait thirty years before I'm finally re-connected with my true love. It sucks having to wait that long and in the novel, the protagonist sleeps with countless random women (he's remains unmarried until near the end of the story) but the physical gratification he gets from womanizing comes no where near to the emotional pleasure he derives by peeking through her house gate just to have a glimpse of her silhouette. If that's not true love then I don't know what is...