5 Lessons on Romance From the Guy Who Sucks at Romance
By: Benjamin Sledge
Tags: Dating, Relationships, Marriage, Romance, Life Lessons

I once had a girl dump me hours before a Valentine’s Day date. I’d planned a romantic evening at a schmancy restaurant overlooking the lake, bought flowers, and even purchased a small gift to make her feel special.

When I finally got ahold of her on the phone — after showering and preparing for our night out — she informed me she couldn’t make it… and that we weren’t going to make it either. Crushed, I hung up the phone and, dressed in slacks and a button down, meandered down the street to a strip of college bars. In one of the more unhealthy ways of coping, I drank myself into oblivion, stole the microphone from a local band, and launched into a tirade about how I sucked and Valentine’s Day was BS.

The rant became known as the “Sledge Sucks” speech among my fraternity brothers and has continued to live on in infamy. I was too young (and immature) to figure out why I was failing at romance and relationships, and truth be told, I didn’t have a romantic bone in my body. While it’s true I sucked at romance, through the school of hard knocks I discovered a few valuable lessons that have saved my ass now that I’ve been married for 10 years.

And hopefully they can help save your bacon too.

1. Keep chasing the girl even when you get her

With the rise of dating apps there are (seemingly) an infinite amount of fish in the sea. If you get bored with one girl, you can move on to another. We appear to be so bored with our relationships that dating in the 21st century is consistent with the terms “shallow” and “flakey.” Most everyone — guy or girl — enjoys the chase and the thrill of a new relationship. We dress up, brush our teeth, put on cologne, comb our hair, and attempt to impress one another with gifts, gestures, or dates.

Then you enter the lull.

Suddenly you’re in sweatpants and content having another pizza night on the couch. You’ll fart in front of the other and slide into a routine. Until it kills your relationship.

A vital lesson I learned early on from friends much more romantic than me was to keep chasing, pursuing, and wooing my significant other. Because if I don’t, they told me, “someone else will.” So the same effort you put into winning her/his affections, I would encourage you to do forever and unto infinity.

2. Quality time is key even if you’re not a quality time person

My parents and family have all remarked that I’m the lone wolf in the family. Even before I turned 18, I had plans to move out by joining the military. Even after I got home from Iraq and went through a traumatic split, I didn’t go back home, but moved to a new city. In the middle of the COVID pandemic, I picked up and moved to Colorado despite having family and community in Texas. I’ve always been comfortable on my own and fine with severing ties when necessary. My parents, by comparison, have lived in the same home for over thirty years, and my brother moved back to the same town after medical school and his military stint.

And yet, I’m a firm believer in living connected with a thriving community of friends. I always put in the time, effort, and energy to create new relationships with each move. However, you cannot have a relationship with people you don’t spend time with.

We all subversively think our followers and Facebook friend count prove the opposite, but the shallowness of relationships is dooming our friendships as well as our romantic ones. To build any level of intimacy, depth, friendship, or connection, you have to spend time together. While I may not be a quality time kind of guy, I do grasp this — spending time together is the only way to build any sort of connection, romantic or otherwise.

3. Small gestures over grandiose ones

For the past year, I saved extra earnings from writing so I could book a surprise trip for our ten-year anniversary. Because my 40th birthday also coincides with my wife and I’s anniversary, I combined the two and let our friends in on the secret.

It totally backfired.

My wife ended up stressing about a future anniversary trip while I would slyly remark “Don’t worry, I got this.” She also didn’t like that I hid money, even if it was a surprise. Then I discovered she preferred it to be just the two of us on the trip. While I tried a big gesture, she explained I could have informed her. It was the gesture alone that mattered, not how grandiose or surprising it turned out to be.

Over the span of each relationship I’ve had, I’ve found that statement to be true. It’s not how big the gesture is, but the small intentions behind it. The little things add up way more than always trying to pound out some grand romantic gesture. The reason small gestures work more to your advantage is because it reminds your significant other that you care year round — not just on big occasions.

4. Put your effing phone down and talk

Let me tell you what most marriages consist of: both of you arguing about who spends more time on their phone until you die. While I’m somewhat teasing, I’m also not, because this has been an issue within my marriage and other relationships I’ve observed. Even the comedian, Bo Burnham, took a prophetic jab in his most recent comedy special, Inside. During the middle of a song where he laments turning thirty, he stops to tell the audience:

“Yeah, well, your f — -ing phones are poisoning your minds, okay?

So when you develop a dissociative mental disorder in your late ‘20s

Don’t come crawling back to me.”

It’s a hilarious barb, but there’s a deeper truth. Many of us are too busy burying our head in our phones as opposed to connecting with the person in front of us only to wonder where the romance is. Go to any restaurant in the United States and you can watch a couple eat a meal as they both scroll through their phones, never talking to each other, let alone taking the time to talk. Half the time, when one partner is trying to talk or open up, the other is only partially listening because they’re goofing off on their phone or have an “important text message” to respond to.

For the love of God, put down your phone — hide it in a drawer if you have to — and talk to one another.

5. Bite your tongue and be kind

When my wife and I were going through premarital counseling, our counselor asked me if I wanted to “be right, or be happy?” I thought for a moment then responded, “What if being right makes me happy?” She was quick to inform me that our relationship wouldn’t last if I couldn’t learn to bite my tongue.

St. Augustine once remarked that “humility kills pride.” At the core of couple fights is someone who wants to be right or validated. In each of my fights with my spouse this has been the case 95% of the time and — say what you will — there is always an element of pride and vanity involved. While it’s intoxicating to go for the “W” and feel vindicated, what’s the cost? And what’s more romantic? A partner who operates with dignity and humility? Or one who lashes out and has to be right?

Take it from me. Bite your tongue till it bleeds and put in the effort to work on integrity and character, rather than being right. It’s a helluva lot more romantic than another night fighting.