This article exists as part of the online archive for HuffPost Australia, which closed in 2021.

It's Romance Awareness Month So Drop Your Phone And Hold Hands

Here's a non-romantic person's guide to being a total catch.
Who said romance is dead?
Peter Beavis
Who said romance is dead?

Hand-holding is awkward, love letters don't have spell check and flowers shrivel up and die -- so why be romantic?

Well, according to Curtin University lecturer and sexologist Amanda Lambros, romance is worthwhile because "it makes you feel good".

"Who wouldn't put their hand up to feeling good?" Lambros told The Huffington Post Australia.

"When you're fully in romance mode, you have all these hormones flooding through your body like dopamine and oxytosin. They swarm like crazy and it makes us feel all giddy, smitten -- it feels good.

"In very good romantic relationships, the giddy feeling could last up to 18 months."

August is Romance Awareness Month, which, as far as we can tell, has no specific origin, but dating sites use it to tie-in surveys, like this eHarmony one, that says 96 percent of people agree romance is important and 53 percent think a relationship is doomed without it.

Lambros' tips for feeling romantic

Put down your phone and look in your partner's eyes.

Leave a love note on a sticky pad.

via GIPHY

Initiate physical contact like holding hands or sitting together on the couch.

Get a $2 whiteboard marker and scrawl a love note on the mirror.

Queensland University of Technology Creative Writing and Literary Studies head Glen Thomas is an expert in romance novels and said readers loved a bit of fantasy.

"It's sheer escapism -- being able to get away from the mundane world into a slightly different realm where you're always guaranteed a happy ending.

Reading romance novels helps with empathy.
Chaloner Woods
Reading romance novels helps with empathy.

"The bulk of a lot of fairytales are based on a romantic basis where two people meet and are guaranteed to live happily ever after but there's some trouble in between to push the story along."

Thomas said indulging in a good book, romantic or otherwise, could make you a better partner.

"Reading a story makes people more empathetic and understand alternate points of view more," Thomas said.

"The experience of reading a book is seeing the world through someone else's eyes."

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