Romance

I once took a quiz on Facebook, "Which personality trait stands out most in you?" and predicted a result before I received it: romance! Exactly in that word form! I have always been a true romantic at heart...

Most girls go through a phase where they hate boys in elementary school. If I remember clearly, I may have gone through that phase, but for a very short time. I remember liking boys (platonically) and wishing I could be friends with them when most girls hated them. I remember when I was just five years old asking my Mom whether I could marry my friend's brother. I remember one strong crush in elementary school on this other guy. That was the first time that I felt the gushy feeling and butterflies in my stomach. I always secretly loved the jump rope game, "Down in the valley where the green grass grows" and hoping that the girls would say the name of the boy I liked for the person that kissed me on the cheek in the song! I was so disappointed the one time that I played that game with the girls during recess, and the bell rang right before the girls could choose a name of a boy for me!

I loved games of imagining love like that. I went to boarding school, a very romantic idea in itself, in India in eighth grade with the hopes of finding an Indian boyfriend--a hope that was far from being fulfilled to put it very lightly! There was this game that us boarding schoolgirls played, which started during one secret midnight party where we matched boyfriends for each other and from then onwards teased each other about them! It was very interesting since it showed how different girls in India at that age were from girls in America. I went from one world in seventh grade of kids going out for a day and making out to conservative schoolgirls shy at the prospect of love, but dreaming it up and toying with it! I never told anyone this, but I loved the game that we played of matching with boys & teasing each other! At the beginning, people told me that I was so lucky that I was not getting teased, but I felt so unlucky! Then when I finally got teased, I showed that I was mad on the outside while blushing and being thrilled on the inside!

The same went when I came back to school in America when I surprisingly got teased about being matched with a guy in my class whom I had never before thought of in that way. I showed on the outside anger, but just loved that game of an imaginary prospect on the inside! I would be thrilled whenever anyone teased me about him. It was surprising to me that this teasing would happen in America where people did not have to make up and imagine and could just implement romance in action.
Now I will write about the loves of my life. When I say love, I do not mean it literally, but guys whom I have had deep infatuations for. My first love was a guy that I hated at first. He was the Prince Charming of our class whom all the girls pined for. I, on the other hand, was at the other end of the popularity spectrum. This aforementioned guy made fun of me all the time. However, at the end of the year, he asked me to be his friend, which I unofficially accepted. He kept flirting with me after that, and he was so charming that I fell for him. Far from being in a relationship with him, I never told him how I felt. But he did tell me, "I love you." It so happened that I left school after that, before anything could happen between us officially. It just made me feel so wonderful that he felt the same way about me that I felt for him, what I thought was a rarity at that time. My second love was a guy that I met much later in life. He was everything that I dreamed of in every way imaginable. I had a typical schoolgirl crush on him and built him up as the perfect guy in my head. However, he did not wish to be more than friends with me. I never told him how I felt about him, but I was heartbroken when I found out through actions that he did not feel the way about me that I felt about him. I remember that the first thing that made me feel better was going to Barnes & Noble reading Sideways Stories from Wayside School. My heart paradoxically simultaneously melted and chilled when I read the chapter on Alison (one girl and name that I love; the girl in the class that I am most like). I remember it said something like, "She was very pretty so a lot of boys teased her, especially Jason." I especially loved it since one of my first innocent kid crushes was on a boy named Jason! And it also reflected back on how my first love teased me because he liked me. I wished that I could go back to elementary school when everything was all fun & games, and you could have innocent, gushy feelings of butterflies without expectations of anything more! I wished then that I could go back to being a child and never having experienced serious romantic feelings. The only thing that made me feel better after my heartbreak after that was reading kid's books and wishing I was a kid again, before my heartbreak.
I believe that I am one person that is born and made for love. That might sound paradoxical since at this older age, I have never been in a romantic relationship. However, ironically, it is this romantic nature that has led me to this condition. I have always only wanted to ever be in a relationship with one person my whole life and marry him. So I am comfortable with never having been in a relationship. I would like to marry a person that is everything that I have dreamed of; a person that makes my heart flutter and dance whenever he walks into the room!
I know that I have a theoretical, bookish, schoolgirl approach to love, rather than a practical, experienced approach. That is because I still have the schoolgirl innocence of never having had a boyfriend, something which I will detail in a later blog entry!
I will now skirt the issue of romance and sex, love and lust. I love how the Wikipedia entry on Romance (love) (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romance_(love)) renders romantic feelings distinct from sexual feelings, demarcating the difference between love and lust. I, myself, had thought before that romantic feelings could be distinguished from sexual feelings. One can feel butterflies in the stomach without being sexually turned on. Romance by itself is cleaner than sexual feelings. I have felt romantic feelings for a guy without feeling sexual towards him. That is not to say that I am immune to sexual feeling or against it. I think that a marriage needs to have a good combination of romance and sexual attraction.
I think that procreation is beautiful since it symbolizes that living beings are maintained through love. It is sweet that babies are created through love. I used to want to try IVF when I am married out of fascination for multiple births, but now I think that babies should only be created through love.
I also would like to raise the topic of blushing, which I find so fascinating. In Keats and Embarrassment, Christopher Ricks theorizes that blushing is the paradox of having sexual feeling within and the need to preserve chastity. I think that a blushing, shy schoolgirl or blushing bride is very romantic and endearing! Blushing is what makes love so exciting!
I also want to state that gushing is another part of what makes love thrilling! I remember that in Wayside School Gets a Little Stranger, one of the boys brings in this love letter.Louis Sachar writes that the letter is sticky with some substance, but the content of the letter is what makes it the stickiest! You can tell I learned all about love from the Wayside School books..
That brings me to my next topic, fiction on love. As most of you know, Romeo and Juliet is the signature love story. It is in theatrical form. That is a part of the reason why the romantic Juliet is my favorite heroine. "Romeo" is synonymous with lover. Casablanca is the trademark cinematic love story. I have come to notice now that in both these fictional love stories, marriage is not the end. That makes me very curious. Any thoughts on how this might be?

I would also like to specify that although I am crazy about romance, I am not boy-crazy. As I have written, I have just liked two guys in my life. I put my energies into other activities than chasing guys and dating. As a romantic, I believe in destiny, that the right person will come to you. So I have not been dating in the past since I did not want to go out of my way to get a guy. I also am a virgin from every form of sex. I believe in sexual abstinence until marriage.
Whoa, I have infinite thoughts on romance. I know that I am not even close to being done. I will be writing more entries on romance in the near future.
To Be Continued...