I hope all of you humpers had a very happy Easter and if you were giving up sex for Lent, I wish you a warm welcome back to the game.
Where I live in Spain, this past Saturday was El Día de Sant Jordi, the Catalan pseudo-equivalent of Valentine’s Day. On this holiday, men give their beloveds red roses as symbols of their love and women gift their beaus books in commemoration of the deaths of Shakespeare and Cervantes. From a seemingly strange tradition, a day of contagious romance is born.
Though I think we can all agree that Isla Vista is far from lacking in the overactive libido department, I often wonder where the romance has run off to. Is it even possible to woo a girl by exchanging a glance over a cellophane crater of cheesy nachos by the light of the 3 a.m. moon or complimenting the beautiful eyes of a prospect over a Dogtown wiener?
We’ve traded in white tablecloths for dirty bed sheets and red roses for Red Bulls. In a land where poetry has lost out to freestyling and chivalry is letting your lover start eye-to-eye in a beer pong battle, what really is 21st century romance?
OK, so I’m not asking to be woken up by pebbles beating on my window and a midnight serenade, which would probably be more creepy than charming. What I am wondering is, are we putting in enough effort to make the people we sleep with feel wanted? I feel like I should be drinking out of a mug that says, “I slept with some guy and all I got was this stupid text.”
I am fully aware that times are a changin’ and thus, standards of romance are apt to evolve accordingly. I don’t need a guy in a fluffy white shirt and a ponytail pouring hot wax over a love letter devoted entirely to a metaphor relating my hair to the ocean waves. But what about a kind word in passing, a note slipped into a mailbox, a walk on the beach, a face-to-face conversation or a home-cooked meal? What if we made the effort to see the people we booty call at a quarter after one when we’re a little drunk in the light of day for a change, instead of pulling a crack of dawn sprint-of-shame?
Could it be possible, though, that it’s not the lack of romantic attempts out there but rather our rejection of true passion? If a guy does make an effort to be the Don Juan we read about in romance novels, we pass it off as cheesy, tacky or trying too hard. If we can’t hold back our urge to laugh in the face of a sweet-talking Romeo, how are our Casanovas expected to put in the time swooning us?
Are we so jaded that love stories are as close to fiction as sci-fi? Why can’t we just pick up the phone and say what we feel? Or more foreign yet, walk our asses one block over to actually talk in person. In an age where Facebook-chatting your roommate from within the same room is standard, maybe our lack of romance spawns from sheer laziness.
I’m not so pessimistic as to say that romance is dead — just that it may be in need of some serious mouth-to-mouth resuscitation, literally. I know I talk about talking dirty and getting your nasty on, but maybe a good place to start is stepping back from the legs-in-the-air fucking into the lost realm of sweet love-making.
And now, in honor of spreading the word on keeping the romance alive, an uncited, completely plagiarized poem: Fuck her softly, screw her gently, hump her sweetly, ball her discreetly. I say first step, Prince Charming-type sexual seduction; next step, flowers and chocolate. Why do you think they call it “sweeping her off her feet?” Sounds like boning to me.
So, open your hearts to the idea of a Ginger Rogers dance floor dip or a surprise flower for no reason at all. The devil may be in the details, but so is romance, my friends. Dude, Romeo was like 15 and he bagged a hot chick from a rival family with his sexy words. I think it’s time you all sacked up.
And if your dramatic swooning gesture fails, what’s the worst that could happen? A rough one-night stand instead? See, all you Don Giovannis? There’s nothing to lose.