The Practical Romantic

by D. E. Bones

I was a dreamer as a boy, growing up on tales of fantasy and romance. I believed, as we are raised to believe, that Happily Ever After should follow True Love as a natural course. This lead me in later years to do foolish things, like investing my emotional well being in poor relationships. Of course this in turn lead to all manner of trouble and pain. Since there is no insurance available to cover bad emotional investments, I repeatedly found myself on the brink of bankrupt relationships. I began to think about why I kept doing that. I thought about it a lot. I'm still thinking about it.

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That row of stars indicates where I had planned on inserting dictionary definitions of "romantic" and "practical", but after looking at about 20 dictionary websites, I'm disappointed at what I've found. Some definitions are concrete, but the ones I wanted, the ones dealing with attitudes, are all over the place. The general consensus is that romantics are fools and anyone practical is no fun. So just plug your own concepts of these things here and that's where we'll start. For most people, they will be contradictory.

So how do I put them together? My own definition of practical romance is being a realist but still having poetry in your soul. And that requires some explanation.

We're all raised with fairy tales, stories, novels and movies showing how true love overcomes any obstacle, like some invisible force protecting those who find it. We learn the course of true love is a natural law like gravity and should lead to sublime, effortless bliss. Unfortunately, reality shows us otherwise. I'm not saying it can't happen, just that it's not inevitable. All those years ago this realization began to penetrate my thick skull. I was married, and it ended badly. Some time later, I found true love far beyond what my marriage had given me. It ended badly, not for lack of love but because of lives that needed to go in different directions. The collapse of each of these relationships was devastating in its turn.

I'd reached a turning point in my life and the beginning of my education, development, growth or whatever you want to call it. At that time it seemed I had two ways I could turn: cynical and bitter; or try to learn from what had happened. Not being the cynical type except about politics and advertising (as is warranted), I spent a long time on a steep learning curve. I'm still learning, but at least the pace is more leisurely. The major lessons, I hope, have been absorbed. This doesn't mean I can't be a fool for love. But if I am, it's with full knowledge. No excuses, I accept the risks and take the joy and the pain as they come.

But back to learning. I've had my heart broken and I've broken a few, neither is pleasurable. While just as painful, these carried less of a burden of blame or guilt as I learned to be more intelligent about choosing relationships. I became less compelled to see my lovers as I wanted them to be and found an appreciation of who they really were. Warts and all, as the saying goes, heaven knows I have plenty of my own. Slowly I learned to accept the world as it is and not as I wish it would be, and the same for people in general. Instead of disillusionment, I found satisfaction. I find my ability to laugh at life and at myself undiminished and my capacity to enjoy the journey undimmed.

Through many conversations, lots of thought, lots of feeling, this all began to distill into a concept. Being a realist and a romantic are not incompatible. The contradiction is in popular culture, not in fact. I still enjoy happily-ever-after stories, I just keep in mind that they're stories. And I take pride in my practicality but that doesn't reduce my capacity to appreciate beauty and feeling. Once I was talking to a friend and made the comment, "Someday I'm going to write a book and call it 'The Practical Romantic'." Another concept was born, to be pushed around in my mind for a long time. I like how it sounds, and in practice I like how it fits my life.

I've learned that every relationship, whether love or friendship, can be asked the question "Does this enhance or detract from my life?" In cliché terms, is it healthy or unhealthy? If there's hesitation in answering, it's usually because of a negative assessment. No fun, made worse by the fact that if something is bad for us, presumably we should change it. That's never easy even when we acknowledge it must be done. Still, avoidance only makes a bad thing worse. So you take a deep breath, square your shoulders, take pride in being a realist, and make some changes. These may be radical or subtle, they may be sudden or gradual. When a relationship is in the positive classification, it's amazing how much more alive you feel. And how romantic the world seems.

In that wider world, romance is not restricted to relationships. It's an attitude, an approach to life. There was an era known as "The Romance," which followed the Enlightenment. It was personified by a wide-eyed approach to the world and an appreciation of beauty, both natural and created. Look at the world with wonder and take pride in being a romantic. The Enlightenment saw a world to be studied and understood, superstitions of the past to be swept away. It was an era personified by a growing knowledge and intellectual curiosity. Understand the world around you, understand yourself and take pride in being practical. Being a practical romantic is the best of both worlds.

Grasp life firmly. Eat dessert first and take big bites. Sing in the rain. The romantic will let your smile be your umbrella, the realist will know you're going to get soaked. Both will laugh. People will look at you like you're crazy but when they see you smile, they'll have to smile too. You can be a lover and a thinker, an artist and a scientist, a philosopher and a clown.

"Laugh loud, cry hard, play fair and fight dirty," as my grandpa used to say. That's practical romance.