by: Vanessa Bohns | Time.com
Decades of romantic comedies have taught us that words are cheap. Simply saying “I love you” is not enough to get the girl (or rarely, the guy). You need to add gravitas, to go big and bold, to make a grand romantic gesture. But these gestures are only truly romantic when they express vulnerability or make amends without pressuring the other person to reciprocate.
In the classic 80s movie Say Anything, John Cusack’s character Lloyd Dobler famously holds a boombox over his head and blasts Peter Gabriel’s “In Your Eyes” into the bedroom window of Diane Court, the girl who broke up with him. In the 90s romantic comedy 10 Things I Hate About You, bad boy Heath Ledger’s character takes over the high school football stadium’s PA system to sing and dance his way back into his riot-grrrl love interest’s good graces. The aughts brought us Ryan Gosling hanging off a Ferris wheel and threatening to let go if his love interest didn’t agree to go on a date with him in The Notebook, and Kathryn Heigl jumping off a dock onto a departing wedding boat to bare her heart into a microphone to James Marsden and the rest of the wedding guests in 27 Dresses.
Grand gestures are supposed to be romantic and uplifting, but in the real world, many of them would likely raise more concerns than spirits. After all, having someone risk arrest (Fever Pitch), throw themselves in front of a car (Hitch), or sacrifice their career for you (The Proposal) comes with an awful lot of pressure. This pressure can help us understand why most grand romantic gestures should probably be kept to the silver screen.
Last year, Dan Pink, author of The Power of Regret, and I sat down on the “Love, Factually” podcast to debate the upsides and downsides of grand romantic gestures. In a survey, Dan collected over 16,000 regrets from people across the globe, and a huge number of these regrets, regardless of age, gender, or geography, involved situations in which one person was romantically interested in another person, but failed to pursue that person as boldly as they felt they should have. People reported incidents from 10, 20, even 40 years ago, and claimed to have regretted their inaction ever since.
One person described meeting a woman on a train and spending an amazing train ride together. When they got to her stop in Belgium, he said he would get off with her, but she said no. Instead, they kissed, he gave her his mailing address, and they never saw each other again. The man told Dan he has always regretted not getting off the train with her in Belgium 40 years ago.
In my research, on the other hand, I have found that it is harder for people to say no to us than we think. I’ve found this to be true when we are asking people to do us a favor, to do something unethical like lie on our behalf, and also when making romantic advances. While Dan has asked people about times they didn’t ask someone out, in my studies I ask people about times they did ask someone out—and then discovered that the person wasn’t interested in them. I then ask these people how difficult and uncomfortable they think it was for the other person to reject them.
I’ve found that when we pursue someone who isn’t romantically interested in us, we underestimate how hard it is for them to reject us. And when we aren’t simply asking them out, but doing so in grand romantic fashion, that is likely to make it even harder for them to say no.
Despite the different perspectives we were asked to bring to the debate—Dan’s focus on the regret people feel when they don’t go bolder, and my focus on the pressure they can put on the other person when they do—we were able to identify two classic rom-com moments we agreed were more romantic than problematic.
One is the late, great Heath Ledger’s song-and-dance routine in Ten Things I Hate About You. At the point when Ledger performs this scene in the movie, Julia Stiles’ character has indicated some interest, but she is hesitant because she has been hurt before and is not ready to be vulnerable with someone new. Ledger’s routine recalibrates the relationship by making him the vulnerable one. He performs a big, bold, embarrassing act, during which all eyes are on him, and he is the one incurring the lion’s share of the social risk. Then, when the act is over, he doesn’t turn the spotlight on her and ask her to go out with him in front of the whole school like a jumbotron proposal. He simply runs off.
The other example is Kathryn Heigl’s speech in 27 Dresses after she manages to board the departing boat, track down the bride, and commandeer the DJ’s microphone. Kathryn Heigl and James Marsden’s characters have already expressed their feelings to one another, and after being hurt by his betrayal earlier in the movie, she is the one who has most recently lashed out at him and gone off to explore an opportunity to pursue a relationship with another man she had long been in love with. Heigl’s romantic gesture shows that she has moved past this hurdle, forgiven him, and chosen him over this other man. Could she have said what she wanted to say to him in private? Sure. But the grand nature of her speech makes it clear that she really means it. Importantly, however, she ends her speech with, “That’s it, that’s all I had to say,” before walking off.
In both examples, no one is being proposed to, asked on a date, or really being asked any kind of question that would require them to respond in an immediate, public way. The characters’ willingness to walk away after making a bold statement shows respect for their love interests’ autonomy.
More than that, these gestures are attempts to make amends or rebalance the scales, rather than arguments meant to change someone’s mind. There is a difference between doing something bold to repair hurt you’ve caused or reassure someone of your commitment and doing something bold to persuade someone to feel something they’ve already said they don’t.
So, what are we to make of the man who spent 40 years regretting not having gotten off the train with a woman with whom he had such a strong connection? I would argue he did everything right.
By giving the woman his address and leaving the ball in her court, he did “go for it”—while respecting her autonomy. The fact that he wished things had turned out differently doesn’t mean he should have pursued her more aggressively.
That’s the trouble with grand romantic gestures; they can make respecting someone’s wishes look like giving up too easily.