Mr. Romance

Mr. and Mrs. Romance

I jokingly call myself Mr. Romance to Tammy. She either rolls her eyes or laughs outright at this description of me.

Recently, Tammy and I were discussing high school reading assignments. The story of a young couple came to mind. She had long, luxurious hair, and he had his grandfather’s pocket watch. One Christmas, he sold his watch for an ornamental hair clip for the hair she treasured. Meanwhile, she sold her hair to buy him a gold chain for his family watch. (If you know this story, please tell me the title.)

The teacher asked the class what they thought of the story. One girl answered that it was romantic how they both gave up their most treasured attribute for the other’s sake. Even the other boys in the class confirmed the grand gesture of the two lovebirds. The teacher’s eyes finally landed on me, Mr. Romance, sitting in the back row. “Dan, what do you think?” she asked with a certain regret in her question.

“They were stupid,” I blurted. Before I could defend my position, the whole room erupted in righteous indignation over my thought. The most vocal was the girl who answered first. She objected like I mortally wounded her. The class extolled the virtue of the two young lovers while I contemplated my response for future reference.

If the two young lovers had talked to each other, they could have both the gold chain and the fancy hair tie. Instead, they acted unilaterally while ignoring the other’s presence in the relationship, and in the end, their gifts were worthless with no meaning. It might have taken them longer to get the prized presents, but the significance of the gift would have remained.

My thinking was and is that the best romantic gift is working together to achieve mutual goals of financially, spiritually, and lovingly advancing the marriage. As Mr. Romance, I have tried to live up to this lofty goal of working together to better our lives. True romance is loving your spouse enough to sacrifice to make the marriage successful.

If I am Mr. Romance, Tammy is Mrs. Romance.

I am looking for ARC readers for my unpublished book. If you want to read my latest story, The Antidimension, please contact me at dannymac@dannymacauthor.com. I can send you the story in PDF, ePUB, or MOBI format.

Grace to you,

Danny Mac