Recently, a teenage starlet and her boyfriend taught me an important lesson about love.
Well, I shouldn’t say they taught me so much as reminded me about something I already know, but sometimes forget.
I was at a movie premiere with my husband and I was sitting in the audience waiting for him to finish chatting with is fellow executives. (Insider Hollywood Fact: the majority of a movie premiere is spent sitting in the audience waiting for the celebrities and executives to take their seats.) While I was waiting I was scanning the crowd checking out what everyone was wearing and I noticed a young beautiful actress and her equally young beautiful boyfriend making their way down the aisle to their seats. I noticed them because she’s quite famous and she always wears these adorable little dresses to events so I was spying to see what she had on that evening. As they made their way down, the aisle was quite crowded and as I watched this man-child (who couldn’t have been older than 19) gave her the low-back-touch. You know that touch… when the handsome man gingerly touches a ladies lower back to guide her around crowds of people or lead her into a room. I don’t mean that he nudged her, or tried to control her, I mean that he lightly touched her low back in the classiest, most gentleman-like way that even George Clooney would have been jealous of how suave this kid was. I don’t know where someone so young learned that move but it was so effortless and confident and it looked like every scene anyone ever wrote into a romance novel about a young bright eyed girl and the millionaire she falls in love with. I was totally jealous!
You see, my husband is kind and funny and a good kisser. He opens the car door for me and rubs my feet when they hurt. He’s a wonderful husband, father and friend… but he doesn’t touch my lower back to guide me effortlessly around groups of people. Is the low-back-touch important? No way. Will it make our marriage stronger? Absolutely not. But it does strike me as utterly romantic. It does make my tummy flip when I see someone else do it for their wife and I’d really love it if he did it for me.
When I was a newlywed my mom gave me great advice. She said, you can either tell him exactly what you want for Christmas or you can let him guess, but don’t be disappointed if his guess is new tires for your car. Our relationship is wonderful but I love the idea that we keep dating each other, keep the romance alive and keep falling in love all over again. And so I asked for what I wanted instead of letting him get me tires for Christmas.
On the way home that night I said, “you know, there was this guy there tonight and he did that low-back-touch thing to guide his girlfriend around a crowd. Do you know the touch I’m talking about?” “I do,” he answered. “I think that move is really sexy. I don’t know why, but it seems so romantic and I was wondering if you’d do that for me.” “Totally,” he responded without missing a beat. And that was that. I didn’t start an argument or accuse him of doing something wrong, I just explained what I was hoping for and he agreed because innately he wants to please me and make me happy in the same way I want to do that for him.
My request might seem utterly stupid to you, which is ok because it’s my romantic ask, not yours. The point though, is that you probably have your own ideas of what might make your tummy flip and there’s a chance your partner doesn’t know what they are. Instead of waiting for them to figure it out on their own (and then inevitably being frustrated or disappointed when they don’t) why don’t you just ask for it? Over the last ten years I’ve asked Dave hold my hand more, send me love letters, kiss my neck, play with my hair a plenty more requests that aren’t appropriate to share in print. All of these things make me feel pretty or loved and while they may have started as a request, now they’re just a part of our love language. You have the power to make your relationship stronger, healthier, and more romantic… you just have to ask. ~Rachel
Photo By Jacqueline Pilar
