“Love is sharing a password,” reads a resurfaced 2017 tweet from Netflix. A virtual vow that has not aged well, following the streaming service’s U-turn as it starts cracking down on password sharing around the world. Enter: global outrage from, I’d wager, a large portion of non-cohabiting couples who secretly bathe in the knowledge that someone trusts them enough to share their account for a website they are, let’s face it, the least likely to unsubscribe to – and doesn’t mind their watch list now has multiple-personality syndrome.
It’s like a softcore version of giving someone a spare key for the first time. A sweet token of commitment (admittedly, far less painful and borderline cringe than tattoo-syncing à la Bennifer). I call it ‘micromance’, which essentially describes those small acts of intimacy that can make a big difference.
Love is sharing a password.
— Netflix (@netflix) March 10, 2017
Chatting with the actress and Crushed podcast host Margaret Cabourn-Smith not long ago, dissecting the glorious highs of dating admist the painful drudgery, one stood out. When she first started seeing her husband, she briefly mentioned her love of snow globes. He took a mental note and, a few days later, bought her one to add to the collection.
“My guy friends were like, ‘What, that thing that cost £2? Why are you going crazy about that?’
“What was brilliant was my two female friends, in unison, said, ’He was listening!’”
Obviously, everyone has their thing. A less-explicit erogenous zone of sorts. Personally, my heart was bursting with total adoration at the site of a surprise hot chocolate in my boyfriend’s hands, from one of my favourite London establishments (Knoops), when I walked in feeling frazzled (read: cataclysmically hormonal). It’s high time we praise finding the little joys, and often…
Thinking small
Holidays you can’t afford or dinners at restaurants that have a two-month waiting list? Out. This is not to suggest Big Romantic Gestures don’t have a time and a place. Of course they do (you’re moronic if a weekend in Paris does little for your dopamine levels). In: finding magic in the mundane; the beauty in the surface-level banal. A lazy sunday when the most productive thing you did all day was agree in less than 30 minutes what film to stream (in fact, academics in Zurich found that couples who bonded over bad behaviours - lazily lounging around all day or eating comforting food together - built more intimacy than going for a run...so, there’s that).
The snack trip advisor
When you say, “Hmm, I don’t need anything,” in response to a corner-shop run and they bring back a care package anyway. Just in case. Going against the grain of what literally any psychotherapist will tell you, sometimes actively not listening, occasionally, can be a good thing. You know, like when someone says they don’t care about doing anything for their birthday. Or Valentine’s Day. Trust me, they do.
Gossip as a love language
There’s something uniquely bonding about returning from a house party and noting its most boring, insufferable, players. In almost every other social setting – with friends, colleagues – this gets a bad rep, perceived as unnecessarily catty and conspiring. In relationships, however, it’s just pure, titillating fun. A low-key thrill. More virtuous, even; less high risk, most definitely. Your eyes gleaming when their mouths form those two blissful words: “safe space…”
Sometimes domesticity really is bliss
Sounds boring as hell. And yet, sometimes, just washing up, washing the sheets, washing anything really – unprompted and not done with the intention of a thousand thank yous – is vital to soften the blow of their otherwise shitstorm of a day.
The P-word
“I love you” is great, keep ’em coming, but sometimes what you want – or rather, need – to hear at the end of the day is an impassioned, “I’m proud of you!” These simple words can induce in you the confidence of a crypto bro for doing something as simple as making chicken-noodle soup for the first time and not giving you both food poisoning.
Sticking to your side
You know that saying… if you love someone, you need to set them free? Well, the same rule applies when navigating bedroom politics. I’m talking about when you’re sharing a bed with someone and, instead of snuggling all through the night with the attachment style of a koala bear, they give you the thing you need the most – but would rather not draw much attention to for fear of hurt feelings – to get a good night’s sleep: physical space. Now and again, at the very least.
A 3.17pm text
OK, so the timing, depending on one’s general routine and lifestyle, will vary for everyone. The point is, as time trucks on in any given relationship, sometimes you find yourself in a kind of Groundhog Day of communication. Sticking to an unspoken schedule. When you’re apart, waiting until the working day is over, for instance, to check in. Sometimes, breaking routine with a mid-day meme of a cat reading Wikipedia is the instantaneous pep one secretly craves. Not the stuff of Austenian courtship admittedly, but cute, nevertheless.
When in doubt? Chocolate is never not good to receive (mostly)
The rule of two, non-applicable to lactose intolerants and those with dairy allergies, unless it’s vegan: keep it niche, keep it personal (their desert island sugar fix), or sentimentally specific (“remember when we gorged on M&M’s during our first cinema date?”). However, picking up a Snickers bar while forgetting that your girlfriend does, in fact, have a peanut allergy is poor form, my friend.
Couple watching
Couples watching other couples is an underappreciated experiential delight. Both making bets on whether it’s a first, or fourth, or 50th date? Who’s more into who? Dual eavesdropping, covert chemistry-test readings, two pints of lager and a packet of crisps… c’mon, what’s not to love?
Being a secret colleague
It’s 10pm. Tomorrow’s big work meeting is at 9am. You’re spent of energy, inspiration, the last seeds of motivation lost somewhere between your commute and near-weeping at the cost of baked beans now jacked up in Tesco. Watching you staring blankly into the existential void, the object of your affections grabs your laptop, tinkers away for 10 minutes, et voilà! Zhuzhing up your presentation and, subsequently, reinstating your sanity in the process. Like A$AP Rocky declaring his album was “absolutely influenced” by Rihanna except, in this case, your album is a PowerPoint deck, and you tell absolutely nobody.
Frugality is sexy
Making someone a hot-water bottle? Warming your feet under their legs? Remembering to turn off all the lights? Quasi-erotic in 2023.
Tourist attractions
When you’re giddy to explore the capital’s hidden crevices. Bumble around the newly licked Battersea Power Station. Find a park less travelled. Finally, get round to visiting Fulham Palace. Flirt with that wine bar you saw mentioned in the Evening Standard. Sometimes, just escaping to Zone 4 can feel like a minibreak, minus a credit-card bill that will inevitably cause migraine.
Crazy, stupid, love
Adulthood should realistically be advertised as a life-long degree in checking things off a to-do list. Days stacked with emails to send, bills to pay, parents and friends to remember to text back, and on and on it so tediously goes. Being silly with your lover, however, is the sweeter pill to swallow. A small resting place in a sea of seriousness. The more embarrassing you are together, in the name of laughter, the better. An absurdist joke or operatic rendition of a Disney song that becomes part of your shared language, bizarre and incomprehensible to outsiders.
The last bite of dessert
The hard-line at the centre of all pleasure? Generosity. Always and forever.
True romance is sharing uncommon interests
“I saw this and I thought of you…” Not me, you. Your tastes. Your music interests. Odd little fandoms. At the end of the day, it really is the thought that counts. Well, mostly.
