The Trouble with Grand Romantic Gestures

Grand gestures are supposed to be romantic and uplifting, but in the real world, many of them would likely raise more concerns than spirits. After all, having someone risk arrest (Fever Pitch), throw themselves in front of a car (Hitch), or sacrifice their career for you (The Proposal) comes with an awful lot of pressure. This pressure can help us understand why most grand romantic gestures should probably be kept to the silver screen. 

Last year, Dan Pink, author of The Power of Regret, and I sat down on the “Love, Factually” podcast to debate the upsides and downsides of grand romantic gestures. In a survey, Dan collected over 16,000 regrets from people across the globe, and a huge number of these regrets, regardless of age, gender, or geography, involved situations in which one person was romantically interested in another person, but failed to pursue that person as boldly as they felt they should have. People reported incidents from 10, 20, even 40 years ago, and claimed to have regretted their inaction ever since.