Some musings on a Sunday afternoon.

I am a hopeless romantic. And yet, I hate romance movies with every fiber of my being. Why? Because they trivialize love; forcing it into awkward, gimmick-laden situations until the stories become indistinguishable from one another. No earth has been trod so well as the path of romantic comedy; the dirt will no longer keep any imprint of substance.

Also, it bothers me that the part of the romance these films focus on is inevitably the least interesting: namely, the beginning. It is impossible to love at first sight, love requires deep knowledge of another person. Love requires understanding their needs, thoughts, wants, ideas, pasts, and ideologies.

You cannot call an emotion love not honed over years, not without being familiar with the bad habits and human weaknesses of your intended. Intimacy without emotion is not intimacy, it's a prolonged one-night stand, and it's as shallow as an brief one. One night stands or short-term couplings are fine for them's that like them; I have no moral qualms with people fulfilling sexual needs, even if I myself am not interested in sex without connection. Just don't call it love, for that debases us all and belittles the scope of the thing.

The beginning of a bond is always its most tenuous. Love takes patience, faith, and the foresight of mind to reevaluate yourself and your needs in the face of cooperative communication. A bond that weakens over time is just falling to the inevitable errors in its inception, playing out its errant course. But make no mistake, the signs were there at the start.

People who are truly in love with one another have seen sides of the other person you don't see in the honeymoon stage, and borne it out. Romantic comedies (and frequently dramas) stay in safer waters, prefering the cute over the substancial. But real love is far more murky; deep, complicated, and dark.

Love grows out of life: out of stress, out of miscommunication, out of grief, tenderness, humanity and toil. True love fights, even to the death. True love is not for the weak, the selfish, the arrogant, the impatient, the greedy, and the childish. It will bear them in the short-term, but in order to keep two people happy they both have to be willing to shrug off bad habits over time; it is unfair to ask someone else to suffer anything in you that you are not willing to suffer in them. The honeymoon stage may be all well and good for the romance industry, but love requires more; it requires you to change for the better, which doesn't sell as many diamonds.

Romance is all well and good, but give me love every time. Just don't confuse the two in the public mind, because meeting cute does not happily ever after make.

Chick Flicks have it all wrong.

Love isn't long romantic weekends full of flowers, diamonds, and hand-kissing. Nor is it steamy, semi-sleazy, fervent coupling in a rainy meadow. (though I wouldn't knock it, it's quite lovely.) These things are nice, but they're transient, impractical, and ultimately unsustainable.

Love is watching your husband fall asleep with a book and a cat on his lap, while you both watch Law & Order reruns on Channel 46 at 10:00 on a Friday night. It's the way you're both exhausted from your respective days, yet still want to be in each other's company. It's the heavy leg he throws over your lap, the soft blanket covering the two of you that you both bought when you purchased the couch, and the way you can recognize the sound of his snoring in a crowded room.

It's learning that you made the right choice, all those years ago, when you decided to take a chance on a guy six years your junior, because he was cute and could use the word 'anaerobic' correctly in a sentence. It's learning that comfort doesn't equal boredom, and that your definition of freedom can widen when you meet the right person. It's letting the cynic inside of you quiet a little, because you don't have to use it to protect yourself anymore.

In the long run, it's a lot more satisfying than anything starring Kate Hudson ever will be. True love will change you, but it will always be for the better.