The 7 Deadly Sins of Falling in Like: Grand Gestures

Grand Gestures is the topic of our third Deadly Sin of Falling in Like. Written by one of my good friends, he is the first guest poster on Practical Cookie. After all of his hard work, I decided to run these sins as a series of separate posts. I hope you're all enjoying them so far! Just so you don't get confused, my own comments are added in, in italics and brackets.

If you have missed the first few posts of the series, click on the links to see the Intro, Sympathy and Perks of a Relationship.

Beware of Grand Gestures

Touched on briefly (and purposefully) above, this is one of Hollywood’s great lies. Grand gestures should not really have a place in being in like. Playing their favourite songs outside their house, waiting for them in the rain, getting a flash mob involved, most of us will have had the ideas pouring through us  at some point when things have started going badly, or we don’t know how to move forward. 

The simple truth is that a grand gesture will only ever push them to the side of the fence on which they are already sitting. If they really like us then it will probably work out amazingly. If they are close to the fence or on the wrong side, then it will probably be soul destroying and ruin things more than we can ever imagine. It is a high risk move to play, mostly for our own hearts, and sometimes it is worth the risk to break through to them, even though there is an equal chance of ruining it forever. It is just that we should not have to risk so much. A grand gesture to someone you truly love, when they are not expecting it is so much more amazing than one for someone you are in-like with and who is perhaps preparing to deflect a bold move. (From a female perspective, Grand Gestures are either amazingly romantic or just plain stalker-ish. And as it's been pointed out here, the way that you interpret that Grand Gesture really does depend on what side of the fence you're sitting.)

The Notebook
An example of a Grand Gesture gone right...but imagine if she hadn't loved the guy.
I think that would have made for more of a horror story!