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Yesterday Jon and I were watching one of our television shows. It’s a fantasy action series, but sometimes it contains romance. In this episode, two of the main characters are dating. They call each other first thing in the morning, and the girl guesses what the guy is wearing. She always gets it within two tries.
Cue huge groans from the couch. Our displeasure continued for the entire episode, as the couple’s saccharine take on dating persisted. I’ve always been clear: this type of romance, not my cup of tea. While Jon and I were soppier than we are now, we were never this bad.
Later in the evening I watched an episode of a different show by myself. In that, the lead character has been with her boyfriend for ten years, for basically all of her twenties, just like Jon and I. She laments to her best friends that the spark is gone. “When he touched me, I used to feel a spark, or a tingle,” she says. “Now, it feels like his hand is my own hand.”
Her friends reply that it’s normal, especially because they’ve been together for so long. One friend says that there are ways to put the passion back in their relationship, but that maybe she should also try to adjust to the fact that her relationship has moved on to another stage. The best thing would be to strike a balance between both.
Needless to say, it’s obvious which television show resonated the most with me. I’ve never been the super sappy type, even though I was much more joined at the hip with Jonathan when we were younger, and I still tried to give him super romantic presents (I still try that, sometimes, but not as often).
A ton has been written about this, but I realize that not everyone my age reads it. I learned all about the different stages of romantic relationships when I first dated Jonathan, because I was taking an interpersonal relationships sociology class in my first semester at college. But who wants to read stodgy descriptions of the various stages of romance from a textbook?
The first rush of a new relationship is exciting, even intoxicating. I do miss that sometimes. It can be rekindled a bit when one first gets married, but being with Jonathan was old hat for me by that point. I agree a bit with the girl from the second television show: being with Jonathan is so natural for me now. But I still feel something when I hold him, and it wouldn’t just be like giving myself a hug. Sometimes I do feel a flutter when he looks at me, but I don’t expect that all of the time. Maybe that’s why I feel so content.
As relationships mature, we don’t feel that tingle or spark every single time. But we can still get it back, sometimes, if we work at it. I’m kind of happier the way I am, though. I like feeling comfortable around Jonathan. I can still go weak-kneed sometimes, but I love being with my best friend, and the familiarity that brings.
Related Articles:
The Effects of Media on Romance
You Can’t Always Fix Everything
*(The above image by seksuwat is from freedigitalphotos.net).