Romance makes the offside rule look straight forward.

Okay, let’s start with the definition:
ro·mance
(r -m ns , r m ns )
n.
1. a. A love affair.b. Ardent emotional attachment or involvement between people.c. A strong, sometimes short-lived attachment, fascination, or enthusiasm for something.
2. A mysterious or fascinating quality or appeal, as of something adventurous, heroic, or strangely beautiful.
3. a. A long medieval narrative in prose or verse that tells of the adventures and heroic exploits of chivalric heroes and blah blah blah. Not really relevant this bit….

But you will notice that NO definition (that I could find anyway) talks about anything relating to gifts or breakfast in bed or surprise flowers or, well to be honest, any one doing anything ‘nice’ or self sacrifice. So when did women twist this innocent enough word into such a powerful weapon? When did they decide to disregard the actual meaning of it and turn it into something else, something that only they can define? I have no idea, but somewhere along the line the truth has been left behind. I mean, would my girl feel happy if I wrote in her birthday card ‘All my enthusiasm always xx’? Don’t think so, but she bloody should do if we stuck to the rules and apply the definition. And this is the problem with your united front girls. Whilst we all know that it’s been manipulated, no one never agreed on what the new improved romance should be. In other words if you change your minds about what is romantic from one day to the next then you just leave us lads guessing and if we’re guessing, then we ain’t being romantic, we’re just trying to survive.

I think you’ll find this little test will help you understand what I’m trying to get at here.
Romance Test