Crossing the great divide between romantics and cynics

IT'S been two days since the hub returned home from his business trip to the big city and I'm still honeymooning all over him.

I deliver random cups of coffee just to be in his space for the sheer pleasure of it and I shaved my legs properly, two nights in a row. For a 30-somethinger with a couple of kids and degrees, I'd expect more of me than this, a willing fluff-up of feminist independence.

But age won't dull what we were then and who we are now – we, the incurable romantics.

I've been in love with me being in love from the first, my crush on tow-haired Dylan in Grade 1. I even Facebooked him the other day, just to see if he'd grown old and fat, or if he'd done me proud and settled into the muscled, business tycoon I always imagine him to be. Lucky Dylan to have escaped when we moved provinces in Grade 2 – I set impossibly god-like standards for my crushes.

Unfortunately for the hub, he ticked every box when we met. I went looking for Mr Darcy at 15 and came home with the hub at 28.

My friend, Podge, says that the world is divided into romantics and cynics. There are no in-betweeners and you can spot the compatible couples at a glance. Two romantics are bouncy and ballsy in public and likely to ignore you at braais because they need only each other's company for starters. Cynics insult each other and don't kiss afterwards or say, "I still love you, koeks", but go home together anyway.

The most complicated partnerships, reckons Podge, are the ones involving romantics and cynics. And that would be me and the hub. And probably a good slice of everyone I know.

These are the scripts in which the romantic (usually the woman) asks for flowers but doesn't get them (except under duress), or the cynic (almost always the man) rapid-fires reasons why Valentine's Day is a load of commercial crock and won't buy so much as a chocolate.

And I've been wondering, then, how the hell opposites who attract are able to stomach each other, given that they're not fulfilling mutual needs on any level, except perhaps in small ways, such as knowing how we like our steaks done or keeping our children fed and watered and agreeing that this is a good thing.

I asked the hub last night, hoping that he'd break through emotionally and suggest a soppy renewal of our marriage vows. He didn't, since he's a cynic, but he did suffer my monologue long enough to draft a decent reply.

"It's like this," he said, "men know that by being distant and devilishly unavailable, they're increasing their desirability. It's all biology really – the more you can't have something you want, the more you want it."

Which means, then, that it must work both ways. If you're a romantic, do try this at home: shave your legs, have pretend phone conversations with yourself and act as though the sexy cynic sharing your bathroom doesn't exist.

Within a few days, you'll get flowers. Or, at the very least, a random cup of tea.