Romance isn't dead, we've just been looking in the wrong places

As a relationship therapist, you get the privilege of being invited into the worlds of many romantic relationships. You bear witness to hundreds of love stories, stories of deep heartbreak and loss, and moments of coming back to each other again and again.

Over the years, I’ve noticed how we talk about love and romance has slowly changed and as you can expect, will continue to do so. Romance as depicted in the great 2000s and 2010s was a grand gesture of being chosen. It was someone running through a chaotic airport to declare their love. It was a passionate kiss in the pouring rain after a disagreement. It was overcoming all of the many reasons why we shouldn’t be together, but still for some reason can’t let each other go.

While I’m all for a revival of The Grand Gesture, conversations around romance now tend to revolve around the concept that “to know someone is to love them”. Particularly in this era of screens and being constantly busy and somehow lonelier than ever before, we long to feel seen and known.

What’s different is that these gestures rarely look cinematic with a perfect soundtrack playing in the background, and that these gestures need not be solely within romantic relationships but can also exist within our friendships and family.

It’s remembering how your partner likes their coffee or how your friend is lactose intolerant.

It's continually finding new questions to ask because I love learning how you see the world.

It’s taking on the mental load.

It’s reassurance when you don’t have to ask for it and when you do.

It’s researching something that your partner struggles with like an illness or disability, that you don’t have firsthand experience of.

It’s the physical comfort when words alone aren’t enough.

It’s the intimacy of wanting to make things easier for the other person and to give them a space where they can take a deep breath both literally, mentally and emotionally.

When Chanté Joseph questioned in her viral Vogue article “Is having a boyfriend embarrassing now?”, she succinctly pinpointed how the scripts are changing and that it’s not an achievement to be chosen anymore. As romantic relationships become less of an expected requirement for a big and wonderful life, the choice to opt into a relationship is because this type of love has to offer us something different.

Romance in this new form says “I see you” and “you matter to me”. It’s to be valued without having to perform or bend over backwards for it and so, this kind of romance is quieter and much more of a slower burn.

This indeed clashes with modern dating when we expect a spark, a grand love story or someone else to make a big first move when we in Western cultures have deemed it uncool or cringe to care. We get the ick and we move on. Each time we choose ‘playing it cool’ and when we refuse to let ourselves be known because it feels too vulnerable, too embarrassing or too cringe, we deny ourselves the opportunity for anything more than the graveyard of dating app chats, the dreaded situationship or one-sided relationships.

Part of what prevents us from a revival of The Grand Gesture is not that romance is dead, but there is these gaps that exist between what we say we want, our ability to let ourselves receive it and our audacity to go after it.

What’s different about this kind of romance especially within the context of long-term romantic relationships that while to know someone is to love them, it also requires knowing yourself and to know where I end and you begin. This means knowing my own wants and desires just as intimately as knowing my insecurities and soft spots when it comes to relationships.

When I know where my limits are, I know what I authentically can and can’t do within a relationship. My romantic gesture to take on the mental load for you or to reassure you then isn’t only out of obligation or fear of abandonment, but it’s a genuine offer.

It can be deeply romantic to be the partner who knows when they need to pause an argument in order to emotionally regulate and reconnect. To be the partner who prioritises or initiates quality time together. To be the partner who says no when you mean no, so that it doesn’t culminate into future resentment. To be the partner who invites a vulnerable but well-overdue conversation about the relationship. Again, none of these need to remain solely relegated to the domain of romantic relationships.

These gestures say that not only do “I see you”, but “my relationship with you matters to me more than my need to be right or perfect”. As per bell hooks in All About Love, love is not something that happens to us but something we do. It is an active choice and commitment to nurture self and other.

Beyond the grand gestures, it is these quiet and consistent things that don’t often get celebrated, but that nourish our relationships and how safe we feel in them. In a world that feels increasingly unsafe, our ability to take a long and deep exhale together and to release all of the tension and emotional weight that we carry, even for just a moment is more romantic than ever.