The short answer:

No. (Maybe.)

The long answer:

As far as I’m concerned, there is an easy litmus test to tell whether or not you are a romantic: do you like the movie Love Actually? If you do, then you are a romantic. If you do not, then you aren’t. If you haven’t seen it, then you also aren’t, because no romantic could ever resist watching a movie called Love Actually.

As a rule, I tend to stay away from movies with the word “love” in the title (one exception being From Russia with Love), but I happened to watch Love Actually because a friend of mine swore that it was the greatest movie ever made. In case you haven’t seen it, here’s a spoiler: it isn’t. While I think that one could perhaps argue that cheese is the greatest food in the world, I do not think that this makes the cheesiest movie in the world into a great movie.

Like most children, when I was young, I never thought about the romantic-cynic dichotomy. Then one day in high school, a friend of mine said to me, “Come on, you’re a cynic. You can’t deny it.” And I couldn’t. From that point forth, I was a self-proclaimed cynic, and that was fine by me. (Although a romantic might regret no longer being able to view the world through the unadulterated eyes of babes, the cynic knows that kids are stupid.)

It’s fun to be a cynic. Not to be overly brash, but romantics are easy targets for ridicule. If things turn out badly, then you at least feel satisfied knowing that all those romantics out there were wrong, and if things turn out well, well, that’s fine, too. It’s also hip to be a cynic. You may have noticed that there are not many brooding arthouse films about people living happily ever after.

But I have a confession to make, a deep, dark confession. Sometimes when I’m falling asleep or when I’m feeling lonely, I have disturbing thoughts that I dare not speak aloud. Yes, sometimes I daydream about falling in love and being happy and cuddling with puppies. And I don’t even like dogs.

The truth is that while being a cynic is fun and cool, it does not make you happy. It is difficult to go through life believing that things will always turn out badly, because that can get self-destructive very fast. So maybe I should not be ashamed of the fact that I dally a bit in the light arts. It’s better than dying, a cold, lonely shell of a human being. At least that’s my opinion.

The moral is that the romantic-cynic spectrum is not a dichotomy but rather a continuum. This was a bit disturbing to me, having for years proclaimed myself as a cynic, decrying all romantics. But why can’t you have your feet on the ground and your head in the clouds at the same time? It just means you’re very tall. (Either that, or you’re lost in a fog, which is sometimes how life feels, I suppose.)

I still consider myself to be mostly a cynic, but maybe that’s just because my height is pretty average. So, no, I am not a romantic, but maybe if you try asking me after I’ve grown a bit, my answer will different.

I’m going to go eat some cheese.

Cheers,
-qm