Can you live this fantasy life? (fantasy life) 8.20.02

Ah, romance. Romance is one of those things you never really have to have, like cheese, but it just makes everything it touches so much better ... like cheese.
My buddy, Pete, is one of those great catches, smart, good-looking, independently wealthy. Like most guys, he's about as thoughtless as a tzitzi fly when it comes to the ladies. Luckily for Pete, he's already married and so has no need for romance. Or so he thinks.
I called Pete the other day and got to talking about what he was doing for his ninth wedding anniversary. Nothing, he says, probably stay home. You're kidding me, I says to him I say, you think that is not a one-way trip to distaster?
Operating under the delusion that because his wife SAID she didn't want to do anything for their anniversary, Pete took that to mean that she actually MEANT she didn't want to do anything for their anniversary. Like I said, Pete is an intelligent guy, but he lacks the kind of street smarts to really keep a marriage in fine tune .
Luckily, he has me to make stuff up. I don't need any more women any closer to me than the ones I have now, so it is nice to play Cyrano de Bergerac occasionally. Some guys play fantasy baseball; I can sit back and watch how someone else's love life works under my guidance without all the fuss and extra cleaning associated with human contact.
Romance isn't just what you do to woo a woman. Romance isn't just about love and seduction. The term "romance" actually applies to an entire category of medieval tales based on legend, chivalric love and adventure. King Arthur is a prime example. Romance tales were fantasies dealing with heroism and the mysterious, they lacked a certain basis in fact.
Which is why, years later, the term has been narrowed by common usage to refer almost exclusively to the flowers and candy maneuvering men do to make women feel extra special.
Of course, modern romance is not supposed to just be some underhanded ploy to deceive the ladies, at least not so far as the ladies are concerned, it's supposed to be a genuine outpouring of uncontrollable affection that makes men act in a fashion that is counter to their base nature. "You complete me," "You make me want to be a better man," "Without you I am lost," "You clean my socks like it ain't nobody's business, baby," things like that.
In most tales of medieval fancy, romance was about killing dragons and kicking dude's butts then going off to pick daisies for some chick. They had no TV, radio or magazines so they had to do something to kill time. Occasionally, they killed each other to kill time.
Some dude tried to kick my butt the other day to look cool in front of his "lady." He gave me the time-honored Council Bluffs signal that he wanted to engage in fisticuffs, namely, he took off his shirt to show me his flabby gut and complete lack of hair.
Guys with no body hair just aren't scary, they're like furless Mexican cats, featherless Israeli chickens or N'Sync, an aberration of nature pleasing to young girls who want to keep them as pets, but hardly frightening. I dispatched him readily enough with the flat side of my longsword whilst his girlfriend didst hold my jacket.
I dig romance. I am quite the romantic. Actually, I am quite the disappointed romantic, which means my card is officially stamped "cynic," but life is still a little more interesting with the proper amount of fantasy added to the mix.
Fantasy/romance is why we flirt with people who are WAY too good-looking to condone interfering with us physically in the first place. It's why we get dressed up to go out for a night of fancy living. It's why middle-aged men drive Corvettes and why no woman on the planet wears a shoe larger than 6 or 7 unless it's the store's fault. Half the time, it's what gets us out of bed in the morning knowing that after a day of pretending everyone we work with doesn't hate us, we can spend the night at a watering hole pretending people there do more than barely tolerate us. It's why we nose dive into a book or try to reach level 10 in some electronic reality.
Fantasy is self-medication for the soul. Losing yourself in your own diversions passes the time, but making someone else's fantasies real, well that's just pure altruism. It's also vicarious living - another kind of fantasy.
So I told Pete that if he didn't want to spend the next two months wondering why his wife was mad at him, he better make some kind of effort, preferably in public, to demonstrate that he still goes weak in the knees whenever he thinks about the mother of his children.
I recommended a pizza delivered to the office that said "you rock!" in pepperoni followed 15 minutes later by flowers with a card that said "Just kidding - I love you, baby." Pete opted out of the pie and went for an arrangement so huge they had their own ecosystem and a bottle of cold duck. Six of one, half dozen of the other, I suppose.
- Greg Jerrett is a Nonpareil staff writer. His column runs on Wednesdays and Saturdays. He may be contacted at 328-1811, Ext. 279, or by e-mail at gjerrett@nonpareilonline.com.