Romance Isn't Dead....It's Just Not very Well

"Romance Isn't Dead...It's Just Not Very Well" - the tag line of one of my all time favourite films; a Brit flick called Born Romantic. A movie about the lives of three hapless men, thrown together by salsa and their attempts to woe three women. Love, laughs and a good old British cast, the film shows that although romance is a bit sick, it's not dead, and there's hope.

This film was released in 2001, and I'm convinced that romance went from the recovery ward into a major relapse, and now rests in peace. Gone, it seems, are the days of wooing a women with romance, be it learning to dance to sweep the love of your life off your feet, to creating a tape of your favourite songs and talking in between of your love. What happened to the days of mix tapes and love letters? Is romance dead as a door nail, or do we just need to wake it up?

Now, it's been a few years since I have had a Mr Danger. More than a few actually - three whole bloody years. So I have done plenty of dating, and you'd think, therefore, a bit of romancing. Unfortunately, mainly due to the fact that most of my dates have been shite, the most romantic we've had within this time, was having Rick Astley's "Never Gonna Give You Up" sung at me in the middle of the street. Hardly being swept of my feet - he forgot the lines and later swapped numbers with another girl whilst I was in the loo. But, if I go back in my dating history, I find the days pre mobile phones and Internet (those were the days) are the ones harbouring the romance. How did we do it 10 years ago?? We had no texting - you had to call their home phone (and risk their Dad picking up and mistaking him for your boyfriend and having a ten minute chat before realising - oh my that was SO embarrassing). And you had to write letters instead of emailing - and do the door drop, or send in the post....they were the days of anticipation and no risk of a lovey dovey email being used against you after an argument, and sent round the world..

Maybe I am just having a bad run, or maybe I was just a bit spoilt from a young age. My first ever kiss was on a cruise ship, under the moonlight, with a rather gorgeous Italian (who I'm still friends with and will probably be reading this - did you know you were Lady Dangers first kiss!?). That was a rather romantic start, which led to letters, and post cards over the years that followed.The bundle of letters are still kept in one of my memory boxes, and occasionally read to reminisce... oh to be in the throes of young love again! NB One bundle was thrown in the sea - a long story that involved me finding out that said Italian had got with another girl more or less straight after I'd got on my plane home. He had another week after me, and a year later, when I was back on the same ship,I met the girl he'd got with - I
was heartbroken! My perfect holiday romance had turned into a nightmare, and in a moment of ironic teenage angst, I took the bundle of letters he'd sent over that year (I'd taken them on holiday with me - not sure why) and went to the spot we'd first kissed, and threw them into the ocean.(I hope you feel very very guilty all over again if you are reading this!!).

Anyway, since then, I have grown up a bit, but do sometimes wish it was like the old days. Getting a romantic text just isn't quite the same is it? Letters are less easy to delete, you just hide them in a box, then once the pain has gone, you can re-read them. Texts get deleted the day he fucks you off and forgotten. And having a song - do people still have a song?! No clubs really play slow songs at the end of the night like they used to. What are the equivalents these days????

Maybe its just me, but I don't feel that these days we are focused as much on the romance of life. Where is my mix tape? Where is my love letter? And where is the man that can make Lady Danger melt again? Does such a man exist? Or for the reat of my life, is the most romantic experience going to be from years back?! Am I raising the bar too high? Will I be stuck with receiving random messages from scary Dizzee Rascal
lookalikes telling me I look like "his woman". (I'm very scared - he looks like an e fit off crime watch). I get the feeling that for me, for now, romance is dead, and the most I can expect is to be swept off my feet by some dick teenager on a skate board around Covent Garden. Where are you Mr Danger?! Miss Danger needs some romance pleeeeeeease! (Although can you wait a few weeks - it's still lent and the Big Fella's been good with our deal so far). For now, I will stick on the mix tape I found on my memory box, and have a sing along to a warped version of The Bangles "Eternal Flame", and hope that some day my knight will sweep me off my feet. And hope that I can also work out how to block the scary man on match.com.

(If I suddenly go missing, it'll be him - please send crack team of spinsters and cats to track him down).