Ah, love. Wonderful, magical, some might even say spicy, but no matter how you feel about it, it can be hard to nudge your partner to do something special when it feels like the spark between you has stagnated. 

Now, you’re doing that thing that you’d promised yourself you’d never do: sending them discrete screenshots of the website of the gift that you want pulled up in the background. Not just once either. Yeah, many of us have been there–some still are–but that’s okay, I can help pull you out.

There is always this immense pressure for Valentine’s Day (mostly from yourself) to be the most magical and beautiful day that your heart has ever experienced. Every rom-com dream come true, your whole house filled with flowers (Yes, Travis we’re looking at you), or maybe just a simple romantic outing that we STILL end up getting disappointed in. 

You need to remember though, that romance happens every day, regardless of the holiday. It would be pretty unreasonable and a bit coo-coo to ask so much of your partner when those expectations hadn’t been set from the beginning and especially if you hadn’t voiced what you needed. The best thing you can do is be honest with yourself and your partner about wanting to have more romance in your relationship.

“But Ana, I’m going to look crazy if I say I want nice gestures from my partner and tell them that I enjoy romance and gifts and chivalry.”

No, you are not, and if that’s how they make you feel, then they are the problem (Sorry not sorry).

Now that we have expectations and honesty out of the way, how do you actually spice up a romance? Three words: Schedule it out. When your relationship first started there were factors involved that initiated that chemistry, and as time went on, those factors have slowly disappeared. 

One of these factors could be a sense of mystery and excitement. Being practically strangers with this person, no routine was involved, and therefore, it was exciting to get to know them and things were so shiny and new, which promoted bonding. But now that you know each other and practically memorized their habits, routines, and patterns, it can be hard to not be bored. 

Schedule some time where you can spend a special night together and if you already spend a lot of time with this person, try and reduce that. It might be a bit difficult with COVID, but as long as the intention and specialness are there, even if it’s just a fun Facetime call once or twice a week, that’s all you really need. 

Romance comes down to specialness and curiosity with the absolute poison being familiarity. So, as long as you can find ways to schedule out that specialness, the tension will build on its own naturally. If there is a natural romance in the air between you two, there will be no problem with you guys having a memorable Valentine’s Day!