Romance can survive

What's the most romantic thing you've ever done? Given a bunch of red roses on an anniversary? Booked a surprise dinner in the restaurant where you had your first date?

You've just confirmed my worst fears: romance must be dead - all those romantic gestures are just so hackneyed that they don't cut it any more.

Candle-lit dinners are naff, flowers make me throw up, Valentine's should be swept under the carpet and attempts to soap my back will leave me sitting upright in my bath like a ballerina.

Fortunately, my partner knows the score: that I will sabotage any attempt to soften the mood. But does this mean romance itself is dead, or just that I can't take it?

Denise Knowles, relationship counsellor at famed patcherupper Relate, reassures cynics like me that there is hope yet.

'Romance is still there, it's alive and kicking, particularly when a couple are getting to know each other,' she says. 'And I don't care what anyone else says - women still want to be romanced.'

The sin of cynicism

She seemed like a nice woman so I didn't burst her bubble, shatter her rose-tinted specs or stamp on her head. Instead, I asked her to help us longtermers.

How should we keep our spirits up when Mr/Ms Wrong keeps coming up with the same old routine? 'With great difficulty,' says Denise. 'The key is to become quite realistic about the whole thing.' So, don't overplay things. When someone hands you the standard-issue bunch of red roses, don't think: 'This is a sign of perfect love.' Instead you should think: 'This is a lovely gesture at this moment in time.'

All right, that might work. But what do we do when every charming foible has long since become an annoying tick?

'The problem with long-term relationships is that things get taken for granted so you have to think of different ways of making romantic gestures,' says Knowles. 'Really small things count, like having a meal cooked for you or having a babysitter arranged and then being taken out for a meal. It's about doing different things that need a little bit of thought.'

By this token, my life is, while not brimming with romance, certainly not devoid of it. I cite as evidence my last birthday, when, despite the fact I hate birthdays and keep them as quiet as possible, I did get a bit miffed when absolutely no one, including my mother, remembered. My partner, sensing trouble in the wind, fastened a red ribbon across the front door and placed a pair of scissors on the doormat.

Admittedly, when I got home, I stepped over the scissors and under the ribbon and had to go back out later to cut it. But this, with the balloons, was the kind of gesture I liked. It arose in an unexpected way and was of the moment and for the moment.

Magic moments

It was a bit of a laugh on the one hand and a physical manifestation of a meeting of minds on the other - or at least the recognition on my partner's behalf that underneath his girlfriend's scaly skin was a fluffy bunny waiting to bounce out.

Whoever it was who said that a cynic is a crushed romantic managed to hit the nail on the head. And, I'm working on being romantic too - I do sometimes wash up.