I rewatched Love Actually last night and wow. I forgot how much I loved that movie. I'm no softie, and movies intent on making me weepy end up just making me angry, usually. Stop trying to force me to cry. I'll decide when I'm moved.

Hands off my tear ducts, English Patient!

So what is it about Love, Actually that worked on me? It's the sneak attack of it all. What a funny/quirky movie, say the trailers. Oh, how you'll chuckle and chuckle, little moviegoers. Come on in and smile the day away.

Then you get in there, sit down, start laughing and bam - Emma Thompson sobbing. Ouch. Who saw this coming? Not me.

But that's why I love that movie. That's what got to me - the fact that the true romance rarely is preceded by flowers and balloons. It's couched (hidden, almost) in between very funny, very sad and very real-life scenes. Even some of the more classically 'romantic' scenes in this movie are themselves sprinkled with some pretty irreverant jokes and sarcasm. And it kills me. It works.

Made me think about the nature of romance. I don't think the real stuff lives in the moonlight, the fancy dinners or especially not in the dying-for-you/crying-for-you rhymes of a bad N'Sync song. Romance, as I define it, actually grows in things like the inside jokes between two people. Of course romance can feel hot and passionate, but I think most of the time it 's more just warm and fuzzy.

What's your definition of romance? What does every day romance look and feel like, to you?