What is supposed to be romantic, but just bloody isn’t?

[SmidgenofaPigeon]

A Semisonic song just came on the radio and brought me back to when I was 18, and the slightly-hippy lovely guy I was seeing at the time used to play this on his guitar and sing to me. The whole song, then another song after it. Sometimes another one after that. I’d sort of sit on the bed or hover in front of him while he played his little concert just for me and smile along, but I found it excruciating. If he didn’t want to kiss me he wanted to be singing to me. It was so boring and I never knew how I was supposed to be reacting.

I couldn’t hack it so we didn’t last, and my friend was horrified and said what a lovely romantic thing that was that he did and how awful I was for ending it 😂

Has anyone got any ‘romantic’ things to add that were just a bit boring/awkward?

I would like a joint bath if it was like Ma & Pa Larkin in The Darling Bids of May - ie with a massive fry up and beers on the bath top try thing between them!!!

Oh no! Paris was our first holiday together & it was fantastic. We had a hotel that was so old & classy that they looked me up & down one day & asked, "Are you staying 'ere?" as though they couldn't believe it. We had croissanty breakfast in our deep, billowy bed every day, & one day the chambermaid walked in on us cosily in flagrante after breakfast & retreated with an, "Oh, excusez moi!".

Romantic? Of course it was.

Paris was our honeymoon 30 years ago. I loved it. Still do, have been back a few times and we always stay in our honeymoon hotel.

I am knocking on in years now, so have ‘suffered’ through some romantic gestures over the years!!
My first big romance used to get everything right, present-wise, despite not being overtly soppy.
Second one was hopeless, bless him... the one stand-out Christmas spectacular consisted of car-mats and aftershave!! (He’d got the name wrong of my perfume and the sales lady flogged him what she thought he meant...) Another belter was a electric car polisher... so bloody powerful, it felt like it was loosening my teeth. He proposed in the middle of a restaurant and had to be helped back up to his seat as his knees had gone...🤣
Once he gave up on the grand gestures, he always hoovered and cleaned the kitchen if I was at work and had the kettle on for when I came home. Worth a million daft presents!!
My current one is not at all showy, but again presents me with cups of tea, cooks for me and gives me unexpected chocolate... I’ll settle for that!!
If he started with the mighty gestures now, I’d be very suspicious!😁

Marrying a prince. It's the ultimate happy ending in a lot of fairy tales, but seems to be a bit of a chore in real life.

@35andThriving, it doesn't seem to be going well. Josh Duggar has actually just been arrested today. Nobody as of now knows what the charges are but he is being held without bail.

Centre Parcs isn't the Serengeti.

Loving all of these! Very reassuring!

Ugh I got 20 seconds in PRsecrets, her voice is like nails down a chalkboard 😑

[quote PRsecrets]There’s public displays of affection, and then there’s this. I had to pause several times, I was cringing too hard for these “influencers”

[/quote] Mother of god, I could only endure that for 2 mins

"We met a month ago in wholefoods and we are in love" bwah ha ha ha ha ha

Agree with so many of these. I hate breakfast in bed, so awkward to eat and leaves crumbs everywhere. A bowl of cereal would be just about ok but as it's a romantic gesture it ends up being croissants or something that makes a huge mess.

Also going out for a meal on Valentines day. I have done this twice, both with the same guy when we were students. The restaurant had been set up to maximise how many couples they could seat so it looked like an exam hall with candles and it was too gloomy to see what I was eating, plus a set menu with only one veggie choice. Never again.

[quote PRsecrets]There’s public displays of affection, and then there’s this. I had to pause several times, I was cringing too hard for these “influencers”

[/quote] 🤮🤮🤮

I agree shared baths, seaside sex, (most outdoor sex in fact), Paris or other ‘romantic getaways’, Valentines Day, anything with that raggedy bear on, most ‘romantic’ playlists (I’m old enough to remember the cassette tape ones), showering together, couply jokey glasses/mugs/pillowcases/cushions/T-shirts, PDAs and handholding that mean everyone else has to divert round the happy couple (vom). Baby talk.

DP is a hopeless romantic but it’s mostly popping a sweet and a wee flask into my bag when I had to travel with no cafes open, a cuppa when I’m Teamed out, running a bath for me and leaving me alone in it.
He buys me flowers but the weirdly romantic thing he does is send them to my poor old mum who is so delighted. He does it quietly by himself every few weeks because she loves getting them and because he honours she’s my mum and I love him all the more for it.

For me releasing a video for our tenth wedding anniversary

He buys me flowers but the weirdly romantic thing he does is send them to my poor old mum who is so delighted. He does it quietly by himself every few weeks because she loves getting them and because he honours she’s my mum and I love him all the more for it.

@ItsAllAboutTheParsley now that made me go all gooey and sentimental. What a nice man you have there.

I find things like DP defrosting my car in the winter or making the tea much nicer than ‘pre planned romance’. An used to say things like ‘why don’t we go up a hill and watch the sunset one morning as it will be so romantic’ and I’d feel guilty thinking it but it took any spontibaity out of it all and was just a bit cringe.

• An ex

I can see how a lot of these things are a bit cringey.
We love to have a bath together especially if we're away in a hotel etc. We have a really big bath at home too so it's not squashed to share.
However, I really really don't get the hated for Paris that I see so often on here!
It's such a beautiful city & I always find it romantic to have a few days out of normal life, wandering about arm in arm, just soaking it all up.
We're huge fans of the city break & in normal times we go abroad at least twice a year on them as well as city breaks at home.
Paris or indeed France isn't my top favourite place but I do love it & over the years we've been there 5 or 6 times
Italy holds my heart though & I'm also vety find of Poland.
We're romantic with each other though usually only in private

Sex in the surf line. Tried once, nearly drowned. Took a week to get sand out of everywhere. Never again.

I’d always thought the idea of a shower together was romantic and sexy.

Finally convinced DH when we were in a lovely hotel with a large shower with be off those lovely overhead, waterfall shower heads.

My husband is very literal. To him, showering is... well, showering.

I was all soapy-tit rubs, trying to be sexy, whereas he had his hand on my shoulder using me for balance as he got his washcloth in between his toes.
He also does this weird kind of knee-dip thing while he’s scrubbing his balls, serious look of concentration on his face.

And the waterfall shower head meant that, instead of sexy wet hair pulled back from my face, the water kid of hit me right on the head so my hair splayed out from the centre and I looked like the girl from The Grudge.

“Lady in Red” by Chris de Burgh was about his wife and he had an ongoing thing with the babysitter so the romance is gone with that one.

I had a first date with a guy at a blues club who thought it would be romantic to get to singer to dedicate on stage and sing “wish you were here” by pink Floyd whilst gazing at me like an imbecile mouthing “it’s for you” about 20 times. I was fucking there so the context was wrong. I cringed so much I had an out of body experience.

Surely Valentines Day is the biggest not romantic thing

Going out for a meal. He's supposed to book but leaves it too late so you wind up in some shitty place, crammed to the rafters with other 'romantic couples' rowing over their melon starter and you have to pay twice the price to have red napkins! Extra points if you get seranaded by some shit pub singer doing ballads or someone is hawking single roses round the tables.

Next year you decide to stay in. What can go wrong with an M&S meal deal? DH's utter lack of cooking skills is what. He will burn literally anything or at least overcook it until it's rubbery plus he has to keep asking what to do every 6 seconds whilst you are 'relaxing' with a glass of cheap cava in a beaker because no-one can find the posh glasses. Extra points if DC refuse to stay in bed and keep coming down asking for a drink or having had a 'nightmare'. You end the night falling asleep in front of some shit TV having eaten half a box of supermarket chocs.

I hate Bloody Valentines.
I hate it worse than New Year and I hate that quite a lot.

@Zalto

I’d always thought the idea of a shower together was romantic and sexy.

Finally convinced DH when we were in a lovely hotel with a large shower with be off those lovely overhead, waterfall shower heads.

My husband is very literal. To him, showering is... well, showering.

I was all soapy-tit rubs, trying to be sexy, whereas he had his hand on my shoulder using me for balance as he got his washcloth in between his toes.
He also does this weird kind of knee-dip thing while he’s scrubbing his balls, serious look of concentration on his face.

And the waterfall shower head meant that, instead of sexy wet hair pulled back from my face, the water kid of hit me right on the head so my hair splayed out from the centre and I looked like the girl from The Grudge.

🤣🤣🤣🤣. You know you're meant to sweep your hair back right? Or donit like these two and leave your clothes on. Cause nothing is sexier than wet wool. www.google.com/search?sxsrf=ALeKk01e6hxSXdQ-35KXGPD7DIcl_6NANg:1619771191697&source=univ&tbm=isch&q=the+specialist+shot+in+shower&client=ms-android-samsung-ss&fir=-ni6fPVAIjGWdM%252CbefBMQCw4h5PeM%252C_%253BKMPGhdYZhMC9nM%252CzcoxoZjoeFMd0M%252C_%253BU3DGipKTIFUmPM%252CM8UkhsInJqryzM%252C_%253B0Uh4nCcHejb15M%252Cbupq1dlPR36bDM%252C_%253BIQ9Z44xbMuzHWM%252CSHgzCSpPMSxhEM%252C_&usg=AI4_-kQXPMjoxUPGybmgzRzG_0KdAyT_3g&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiH5f3zxaXwAhX1WhUIHeGfCgMQ7Al6BAgOEAg&biw=412&bih=782&dpr=2.63#imgrc=

Dinner out on St Valentine's day. Especially if you're a same sex couple (shudders at memory)

Sorry, got that last attachment totally wrong www.google.com/search?q=it+started+with+a+kiss+mivie+poster&oq=it&aqs=chrome.0.69i59j69i60l4.1495j0j7&client=ms-android-samsung-ss&sourceid=chrome-mobile&ie=UTF-8#imgrc=mX7oi9sVyIJjYM

it looked like an exam hall with candles love this!

I refuse to go out for dinner on Valentine’s Day. It’s the worst.