What is Your Idea of Romance?

I’ve never been much of a flowers-and-chocolates kind of woman. That’s fine for some, but it’s not really my idea of romance. Flowers die and chocolates add pounds. (Although I do love a surprise bouquet delivered to my door or office. Who doesn't? It just feels good.)

I’ll never forget Valentine’s Day of my senior year in college. In fact, it was my first real Valentine’s Day with someone I was dating and not with my girlfriends. I was seeing a guy who now has his own law practice and was recently quoted in the Wall Street Journal, but at the time his furniture sat on concrete blocks and milk crates. He made pasta, I remember, and it wasn’t fully cooked. He had never made it before, but looked up the recipe and made it just for me. He even made a dessert, but it didn’t go well, so he bought us cheesecake instead.

I remember thinking that it was the best partially cooked pasta I’d ever tasted.

My mom was stuck on my name after reading it in a Harlequin romance novel while pregnant with me. So maybe it’s her fault that I’m a cynic, i.e. a hopeless romantic.

I like to get lost in those incredibly sappy romantic movies, believing wholeheartedly that they are completely unrealistic and simultaneously believing that that kind of love has to exist. I 've never wanted to be saved by some knight in shining armor. I don’t care too much about diamonds. Romance doesn’t have to be pretty, shiny, expensive or even delicious. It just has to be special.

Give me almost-cooked pasta, a failed dessert attempt, laughs, and you’ve got what I call romance.

So what is romance to you? Tell us below in the comments.