In ordinary moments, there are gestures that show romance exists beyond movies. Some people excel at treating their partners incredibly, with surprises and selfless acts. Here are some stories that show what ideal relationships can look like.

1.

I had a date with a wonderful woman some years ago. Her favorite shoe broke a buckle while we were leaving the restaurant. She was pretty devastated because they were from her hometown.
Anyway, I took her home at the end of the night, and she said, “They can’t be fixed,” and threw them in her bin (which was out on the street for collection). I gave her a kiss goodnight and pretended to walk to my car.
As soon as she was inside her house, I rummaged through that bin (and stained a great shirt in the process) and I got those shoes repaired for our next date.

2.

My husband and I have wildly different settings for our shower. He likes “power blast” while I prefer a more gentle spray. I got in the shower the other day and thought about how I never had to switch it to my setting. I realized then that every time he takes a shower, he always switches it back to my favorite setting, so I’m not surprised by a blast of water. I have never done the same for him.
I have since thanked him, and he said he’d prefer I not change the system now, or he’d be thrown off and he “likes doing nice things for me”. He’s a keeper.

3.

I used to work in a sandwich shop where I had to close by myself. I would be alone for the last hour before the doors locked, and then however long it took me to finish up after close. This guy and I weren’t officially together yet, weren’t even really dating, we were just hanging out and getting to know each other.
Anyways, I would get really freaked out being in that building by myself with the doors unlocked, it was in a bad part of town and anyone could just walk right in. I expressed this to him, and he started coming and just sitting in the lobby doing homework and stuff, and talking to me while I cleaned until I locked the doors. Then he would sit in his car while I finished up and then drive me home. It was the sweetest thing anyone has ever done for me. It still makes me smile when I think about it.
We are still together. We have two children and have been engaged for some time.

4.

She was driving around on a weekend, and saw a garage sale where they were selling rusty old tools. She remembered I was currently into removing rust by electrolysis, (I bored her to death explaining the process), so she bought me those old tools, really rusty old tools, for me to experiment. Considering how she hated to be around stuff like that, that was a sweet and cute thing for her to do.