“It is not night when I do see your face.”

~ William Shakespeare

There are no other words, in my mind, that have ever been strung together to produce such simplistic beauty.

There is nothing more delicate than the romantic essence captured during Elizabethan times.

When I think of the term old fashioned, I think of my parent’s generation. The times when men held doors open for women, brought corsages for their dates, and didn’t have sex before marriage.

Men would court women. Double dates would lead to single dates. They’d ask you to go steady. You’d wear their ring on your third finger of your left hand. Maybe you’d wear his letterman jacket.

When I think of the Elizabethan period it seems like a mere fable, as if I’d be better off reading Sleeping Beauty. It is just as tangible in my mind.

Truth be told, Shakespeare’s works were far more idealistic than actual courting rituals of that time.

The essence of life and love that Shakespeare conveyed has been lost over the centuries. Fairy tales appear to be just that. Do I know couples who are madly in love? Of course I do. However, society has changed greatly as it must over time. I suppose it must adapt. Rules have been made where there should be none.

We have The Notebook, The English Patient. There are still tales of romance based on our concept of modern love. If I ever rattle on about Fabio, I will implore you to read no further.

In addition to those, we have books about How to Make a Man Fall in Love with You, How to Find Your Soulmate, How to be Irresistible…10 Tips to Have Him Eating Out of Your Hand….How to Get Him to Leave His Girlfriend….the rules?

Whatever.

How to find the man of your dreams and keep him forever by Bill Shakespeare. Can you imagine?

When did it all get so complicated? When did it all become so manufactured? These are matters of the heart…there aren’t always answers. Falling in love is not supposed to make sense. I understand that we are looking for that connection, for our other half. We want the one person who understands us, who acts without question, who is driven by the mere thought of us.

We are in love with love—I do not believe there is a manual.

“Here’s what love is: a smoke made out of lovers’ sighs. When the smoke clears, love is a fire burning in your lover’s eyes. If you frustrate love, you get an ocean made out of lovers’ tears. What else is love? It’s a wise form of madness. It’s a sweet lozenge that you choke on.”

~ Romeo and Juliet

Truth is, there is no guide at all when it comes to love. I’d rather wish people would practice how to be patient, how to not worry so much, how to let go and trust. Love appears when it appears. I’m tired of our modern day society and it’s need to tell women how they should act in order to ‘capture’ a man. No woman needs a hostage. Everyone is worthy of love.

How to Act on Date One: Steps One through Six. How can you possibly be yourself? How can you let love in when your mind is filled with a list of do’s and don’ts. That isn’t romance. That’s boot camp. It exhausts me. Mind your feelings….don’t call him to say goodnight. He might think you like him…..you need to play the game. I swear these “rules” women would have me stoned in town square, but I find “rules to online dating” comical.

It’s not about the game, because love is not a game.

Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove:
O, no! it is an ever-fixed mark,
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wandering bark,
Whose worth’s unknown, although his height be taken.
Love’s not Time’s fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle’s compass come;
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
If this be error and upon me proved,
I never writ, nor no man ever loved.

~ Sonnet 116

Perhaps I’m just a dreamer. At least the little girl inside me is. She is also scared (and scarred) yet  believes in knights, white horses and that the right kiss can wake you after being asleep for lifetimes. Then, she turned into a teenager and drank away her fears until the liquor cabinet and her heart were both dry.

So how, you ask, can I still believe in love and romance? Because that little girl will not allow me to forget. Because love is brilliant. It allows us to paint the sky without paper.

Love is not a manipulation.

It shouldn’t be something that is pushed or rushed.

Believe in it. Believe in crazy, wild, unpredictable love. Breathe in trust. Believe in romance.

Be who you are and let love find you.

“Love sought is good, but given unsought is better.”

~ Shakespeare, Twelfth Night

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Editor: Bryonie Wise