24 Signs You’re A Hopeless Romantic

A hopeless romantic is an eternal optimist, always believing in the power of love and romance as one of the most important aspects of human existence. Chelsea Fagan explains all the major signs to watch out for if you’re a hopeless romantic.

1. Your capacity for watching cheesy romantic comedies and/or Nicholas Sparks flicks that you know have little to no cinematic value can only be described as superhuman.

2. The idea of receiving flowers at random gets you only slightly less excited than the prospect of winning the lottery.

3. You are likely to ascribe personalities and feelings to inanimate objects in your life. You also may or may not be afraid of hurting the feelings of such things as a kitten, your car, or a toaster that you hit for burning your toast.

4. The strangest things are likely to make you coo “Awwww” audibly while your friends stare at you.

5. The scene at the end of An Officer and A Gentleman made you want to move to Annapolis and stake yourself a good spot outside of the Naval Academy to catch yourself a uniform.

6. You are known to cry at movies (and also inspirational YouTube videos or particularly poignant fabric softener commercials).

7. You are the person who actually enjoys those pictures of little boys and girls dressed up in fancy clothes and holding hands like they’re at some kind of tiny wedding.

8. Though there are a lot of problems in the love lives of your close friends, you remain convinced that they are all going to end up finding the love that they are looking for because they so deserve it.

9. Even if you don’t currently have this love yourself, you are extremely happy for the people around you who manage to find it.

10. You get secretly kind of excited when a couple announces their engagement on Facebook, because this means you get to creep romantic photos for the next few months and appreciate all the effort they put into things like their place settings.

11. You have been occasionally known to work yourself into tears over an egregiously earnest love song.

12. Your friends are constantly recommending the last cornball romantic movie they had to sit through, because they know you would “just loOooOooOve it.”

13. Your Netflix queue seems to be mocking you on occasion, and/or testing how far your taste for the cheesy can possibly go.

14. When you were a little kid, all of your dolls/stuffed animals were in long-term, committed relationships with one another. Two of your teddy bears would be soon nearing their silver anniversary.

15. When people around you get all down about monogamy or commitment, an irrepressible part of your brain wants to break out the pom-poms and start doing a full-on cheer routine for love.

16. You get irrationally sad when you hear that one of your favorite celebrity couples has broken up/divorced.

17. Though you have many OTPs, the ultimate one will always be Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward because, come on, no one did it better than them.

18. You fantasize about long-term relationships with your crushes, as just thinking about the sex aspect of it would be terribly unfulfilling.

19. When you love someone, you are constantly afraid of yelling it at the top of their lungs when they ask you to pass them the salt over dinner.

20. You tend to fall in love with activities you do, from sketching someone across from you at the coffee shop with you to the long walk you take home one day. You see them as almost living, changing parts of you that you need to cherish with the same care you would give another person.

21. You cry even thinking about certain Disney scenes.

22. Emulating the way children see the world around them — and how easily they find the joy and beauty in things — is your ultimate goal in life.

23. There is a not-so-small part of you which will always believe in magic.

24. You are currently debating whether or not it would be possible to get: “Oh! Isn’t this amazing? It’s my favorite because, you see, here’s where she meets Prince Charming. (But she won’t discover that it’s him ’til chapter three.)” tattooed on your ribcage. You’re leaning towards yes. Thought Catalog Logo Mark

Chelsea Fagan founded the blog The Financial Diet. She is on Twitter.

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