Modern Romantic

My brother pointed me to this article by Maureen Dowd. She's a woman discussing feminism and the idea of being "woman" over the years. It's really interesting (albeit a big long) the comparisons she makes with being feminist. For instance, the number of women who take the husbands name in marriage has gone up in recent years. This is apparently an obvious cue that women have lost their self respect. I am oversimplifying her article a bit, and I do encourage you to read it yourselves, but it begs an interesting question: what does it mean today to be a romantic?

I guess I am implying this from a female perspective, but me wanting a boy to buy me dinner and bet he one driving makes me non-feminist. And I think that realising it's an opportunity to get a free meal and not worry about driving makes me more masculine, stereotypically speaking. So think of all the traditional romantic gestures, flowers, chocolates... none of them challenge the mind that I ought to acknowledge having.

But then, the apparently "ideal" courtship of equals that Dowd describes requires me to have a witty, biting "salty battle" that is reminiscent of Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie in Mr. & Mrs. Smith (note that she did take his last name). So I am to have exhausting intellectual banter constantly to remind him that I am his equal? Please.

Is there a politically correct way to have romance and love? Then my brother pointed out oh-so-cynically that marriage doesn't even work out a lot of the time anyway. Which is true and he should know from his days spent in the courthouse (working, not being a client). With divorce and prenups and name changing battles... I believe I am getting frustrated.

Perhaps the point is that if two people are lucky (and I do mean that it takes a certain amount of luck) to make it work, do we really need to challenge that with what example they are setting for the rest of the world? And perhaps that makes me the modern romantic. I still think there are a few lucky ones out there that can make it work. I don't know if it makes me happy to be a romantic, or pity the world because I am a romantic by its definition.