Romance never dies but it certainly morphs over time. Ask any battle-hardened lover around Valentine’s Day. And while you’re at it, pass the nose-hair trimmer, dear. Just kidding.
Hell, it’s easy in the early days for romance to blossom. Primarily because both parties are fresh, sympathetic, toey. You roll out the roses, the candlelit dinners the whatever have-yous, and sparks fly.
When you look back through rose-coloured, heat-resistant multi-focal glasses you realise you were quite literally on fire, romantically speaking.
It’s when the nappies start rolling out, and indifference starts rolling in, that you realise romance changes in subtle ways. Like the nose-hair trimmer.
Grandparents will tell you this is normal.
They’ll suggest that after the initial flush of lust, the alluvial soils of affection settle on the flood plain of life, fertilising the valley but quite often causing siltation in the river amour, in which lovers ultimately begin to feel bogged – again, romantically speaking.
Naturally you’ll recoil in horror. Mainly from your granny’s outrageous use of metaphors.
And you’ll vow never to let that happen to you.
You’ll start thinking about the chocolates, and lobster, and champagne of yesteryear, and how that used to spark things up. But you’ll realise you need to take it to a new level.
You’ll need all that plus something extra, like a few days away ‘‘to reconnect’’. Cynics suggest this means heading off somewhere exotic – Byron, Kuta, Narnia – to rediscover the reason why you’re still together.
But it also means an opportunity to reconnect with the travel industry, who have come up with a myriad of options to befuddle romance-challenged lovers.
You’re not sure where to get away to. But you hope if you get it right, it will have an effect on the relationship not unlike dredging the river amour, better still, the application of Dynamic Lifter to a vegie patch. We’re speaking agriculturally now.
Things will green up, vibrancy will return and if a vegie patch could talk, it’d probably say, ‘I didn’t know you cared’. Of course, as far as agronomists know, vegie patches can’t talk.
But lovers can. So you gotta be careful you get the right getaway, otherwise, ‘‘get away’’ will be all you hear forever after. Put differently, you gotta lift. Dynamically.
At the high end of the getaway scale, there’s private islands accessed by private helicopters each featuring private lap pools hanging over private lagoons. Brad Pitt, the Aga Khan and the Sultan of Brunei love these places.
At the other end of the scale are joints that promise air-conditioning (windows), running water (from the roof) and all the comforts of home (1930s Depression humpy). People like Norman Bates, Ned Kelly and Malcolm Naden favour these.
Somewhere in between you’re gonna find your Goldilocks package – not too try-hard, not too try-less, just right – with enough cash left over to put the kids through primary school. All you gotta do is keep looking.
Celebrated ’70s songstress Charlene famously declared she’d been to paradise, but she’d never been to me.
You and Charlene need to talk at this stage because you’ve been to you – all your life – but a few directions to paradise wouldn’t go astray.
Ultimately you don’t have to wait for Valentine’s Day to roll round each year. You can be romantic every day of your inconceivably romantic life if you’re able.
Just remember this, show-offs: romance morphs over time, and repetition is the nemesis.
How will you rekindle romance this Valentine’s Day? Will you bother?
Email a friend