For a culture that's bought into the photo-shopped notion that romance equals euphoria, or blissful self-fulfillment, or nonstop infatuation, writer Heather Havrilskey offers the following advice on true romance:

After a decade of marriage … I'm going to tell you my most romantic story of all. I was very sick out of the blue with some form of dysentery. It hit overnight. I got up to go to the bathroom, and I fainted on the way and cracked my ribs on the side of the bathtub. My husband discovered me there, passed out, in a scene that … well, think about what that might look like …

My husband was not happy about this scene. But he handled it without complaint. That is the very definition of romantic: not only not being made to feel crappy about things that are clearly out of your control, but being quietly cared for by someone who can shut up and do what needs to be done under duress …

Now let's tackle something even darker and more unpleasant, the seeming antithesis of our modern notion of romance: Someone is dying in their own bed, and someone's spouse is sitting at the bedside, holding the dying person's hand, and also handling all kinds of unspeakable things that people who aren't drowning in gigantic piles of cash sometimes have to handle all by themselves. To me, that's romance.