Romance...different strokes for different folks..

WHAT is romance? Is it gazing adoringly into your lover's eyes murmering sweet nothings? Is it snogging like teenagers in the pub while others look on silently rolling their eyes?

Is it sending flowers? Calling on the hour every hour? Is it having deep and meaningful conversations with your significant other about the future and what hopes and dreams you have?

Well, maybe. I'm sure there are those of you out there who answered yes to all of the above questions or perhaps to just some of them. I answered yes to some myself sure, after all who doesn't like to receive flowers? (People allergic to flowers obviously, but you know what I mean!)

For me though, it's more the little things that are what romance is all about. The unexpected sweet text in the middle of the day, just because. Cutting out an article in a paper or magazine that a boyfriend or girlfriend would be interested in. Quietly reaching for a hand under a table, or while walking in the street and giving it a sqeeze. Comfortable silences. Reassuring someone when they need reassurances, instead of getting angry. Knowing instinctively what makes a partner tick. Those sorts of things.

I know what you're thinking. Kaz has lost it. She's a bitter, twisted old bat who's going to be left on the shelf, gathering dust, until her poor demented parents marry her off to the lowest bidder on her 60th birthday. But I haven't lost it. I'm just saying.

As regular readers will know I recently began dating again and while so far it's been a lot of fun, it has come to my attention that others seem to think that romance really isn't my thing and that perhaps because I present an independent front, enjoy a bit of banter and can be sarcastic to the nth degree that all that hearts and flowers stuff isn't for me. They're wrong.

I am a consummate romantic. I want, more than anything else, to be wooed in the truly old-fashioned kind of way. That excitement you feel when the phone rings, the butterflies you get in the run up to a date, the almost breathlessness you get when you see that certain someone walking towards you. That's me, in spades. I just don't often show it.

I know it may not come across here and indeed those of you who know me will probably go 'you wha'?' when I say this, but I suffer horribly from a combination of shyness and nerves when I first meet new people. This means that I either come across as stand-offish and uptight or I go into a whole Jerry Seinfeld routine, cracking jokes and laughing uproariously (slapping my thighs in some cases). Don't get me wrong, I'm a nice person, and I am funny, I'm just not always Monkey Comedy Girl. And because of the whole nervous-ninny thing, people sometimes mistakenly believe that I'm either hard as nails or a don't-carish free spirit, both of which aren't really me.

I am - just me. And to me, romance is finding someone who realises this and appreciates it, from the off. I'm not asking for much am I? (That WAS a joke by the way.)

So anyway, that's all I have to say on the subject, I just wanted to put it out there. I'm romantic, OK?!

How're all of you?