101 Love Tips

Our article on how to find the person of your dreams has turned out to be the most popular post ever on Romance Tracker, and I was happy this morning to see that it’s made it onto the front page of Netscape.com. It’s bringing a lot of traffic our way today, but more importantly, it’s making hundreds of people think of adding old-fasioned romantic ideas to their relationships!

Will you take a moment to help add some more romance to the world by voting for the story on Netscape?  It’s easy . . . just sign-up and click “vote!”

With your vote, “How to Find the Person of Your Dreams” could rise to the top on Netscape!  Remember: good old-fashioned romance is contageous . . . and you can help spread the bug!

So, when’s the last time you gave your special someone a genuine compliment?

With good manners and politeness getting less and less common in today’s brusque society, even romantic relationships are starting to suffer from a lack of common courtesy and compliments. Sure, your girlfriend, wife, husband or boyfriend may already know that you think they are attractive or exciting or intelligent. But why should that stop you from complimenting them every now and then?

Compliments shouldn’t only be reserved for new acquaintances or people who you’re trying to impress. The special people whose support we sometimes take for granted need an occasional compliment, too. A simple “you look very nice today” or “I’m very proud of the job you are doing” can make your lover feel like a million bucks.

There’s no reason to go overboard with compliments, of course, and too many can go to a person’s head or start sounding cynical. But promising yourself to give your significant other at least one nice compliment a day is a great way to make your lover feel appreciated and add some good old-fashioned romance to your relationship.

By the way, did I mention that you’re a great person for reading Romance Tracker and subscribing to our RSS Feed?

This is just a quick little post to let other bloggers know that Romance Tracker is no longer utilizing the “no follow” tag on visitor comments.  I installed and activated the Do Follow plugin today, so any links to your blog in the comments section will be followed by the search engines.

So what the heck are you waiting for?  Start leaving comments on Romance Tracker and fell the power of linkbacks from a PR 4 site!

Here’s a quick question for Romance Tracker readers: do you have the phone number of your boyfriend, girlfriend, wife or husband programmed into your cell phone’s speed dial? If so, what number are they programmed under? Did you pick that number because it was the next one available, or does your lover’s speed dial number have some special significance?

Before you laugh, there are plenty of reasons why you might want to assign a specific speed dial number for your sweetheart! Pressing number one on my cell phone dials my significant other, because she’s most important thing in mylife and the number I call the most. But I know other people who put their special someone on number eight because of its resemblance to the “infinity” sign . . . signifying a love that will last forever.

In one of my favorite episodes of “Seinfeld,” Jerry began to resent his girlfriend because she refused to give him the “number one” spot on her speed dial. What do you think? Is number one the best spot to have on your lover’s cell phone, or is it more important to get a number that has some meaning to both of you?

Congratulations are in order today for Romance Tracker reader Holly Schwendiman and her husband on their 15th wedding anniversary.  Holly dedicated a really amazing post to her husband on her blog, Holly’s Corner, and I hope you get a chance to go read the whole thing.  Here’s an excerpt:

Thank you for being strong enough to cry with me when both our children were placed in our arms.

Thank you for being the best daddy in the world. For spending time playing with and talking with our children. For setting the best example for them in every aspect of their lives. Thank you for helping them with math in school - something I could never do. Thank you for playing endless hours of games with them and spoiling them rotten. And thank you most profoundly for recognizing my efforts and job as full time mom. Thank you for being man enough to admit that there are things about my job that are harder than your day job. I don’t think you know how truly unique that is.

It looks like Holly and her husband know exactly what old-fashioned romance really is, and Romance Tracker is wishing them many, many more years of happiness together!

When you consider how much importance today’s self-centered society attributes to independence and promiscuousness, you can understand why some people might think that old-fashioned romance just doesn’t exist in relationships anymore. The airwaves and the Internet are filled with examples of people shunning monogamous relationships and romance for self-gratification and indulgence, and romantic couples are usually presented as silly and out-of touch.

Luckily, however, true romance really does still exist out there. It’s tough to point out old-fashioned romantics not because they are on the decline, but because old-fashioned romance by its nature is really the opposite of flashy; romance is quiet, romance is patient, and romance is subtle. If someone goes out of their way to show the world how romantic their relationship is, it’s usually not real romance they’re trying to promote at all.

The flashy, shallow stuff may get the air time, but there are millions and millions of couples across the world who are dedicated to each other and who keep romance alive in their relationships in quiet, understated ways every day.

What is true romance? True romance isn’t buying your lover a truckload of flowers and presenting them live on television for the world to see; it’s giving your lover a single rose every week for the rest of your life. True romance isn’t declaring your infatuation for someone in front of an audience of millions; it’s being there for that special person every day, no matter how hard things get, and regardless of how many people know you’re doing it.

Once romantic gestures become widely publicized, they just aren’t as romantic anymore. You can be sure that every day, a million romantic stories play out in a million different places across the world. You’ll never know about the vast majority of them . . . and that’s part of what makes them so romantic! If you’re truly in love with someone, just making them happy in unique and romantic ways is a reward in itself.

So the next time you see an elderly husband and wife walking hand-in-hand in the park, or an adoring boyfriend holding the door for his smiling girlfriend, remember: that is what true romance is, not the over-the-top, flashy stuff you see on television.

A few huge gestures don’t make a person’s life romantic. What makes a romantic life is an endless series of subtle, simple, thoughtful acts of love.

Those of you who have blogs of your own know that Google Page Rank and linkbacks have a lot to do with the amount of traffic your site gets from search engines. It was a great to see Romance Tracker’s Page Rank shoot up to a 4 after the recent Google update!

Your blog’s Page Rank is a reflection of how many other sites link back to yours, and our new rank shows that we’ve done pretty well with linkbacks in our first few months. Our new Page Rank has definitely affected our rankings in the search engines, too. More visitors than ever are now finding Romance Tracker and reading our daily romantic ideas.

Getting a link from another site with a little Page Rank of its own is a great way to make your blog rank higher in the search engines, too. So why don’t we help each other? Now that Romance Tracker has its own Page Rank karma, we’d like link to your blog for free and share the love!

This is all you have to do: Write a short little post about Romance Tracker giving away free linkbacks. And in that post, make sure that you link back to our homepage using the anchor text “romantic ideas.” Here’s an example of what I’m looking for:

Hey, Romance Tracker is a PR 4 blog that’s giving free linkbacks to your site if you link to them using the anchor text romantic ideas. Go do it!

It’s that simple. After you’ve posted your link, just contact me and I’ll link to your site in a weekly post using any anchor text you want. I don’t care what your blog is about, I’ll link back to it!

If you haven’t figured it out yet, I’m trying to get Romance Tracker into the top ten results when someone searches for the term “Romantic Ideas” on Google.  Right now we’re sitting somewhere around 260, so we’re going to need a lot of linkbacks to move up the ranks!  I’ll update everyone periodically about our progress!

This is a great way to rank for any phrases you want and to build your own Page Rank in the process . . . so what the heck are you waiting for?

Okay, so I’m pretty pleased with the amount of search engine traffic Romance Tracker is starting to get. Following a week long period late last month when Google seemed to forget this site existed, we seem to be ranking again for key search terms like “ways to say I love you” (which is actually the number one way people find us).

I’ve noticed that the Romance Tracker posts that have the words “boyfriend,” “girlfriend,” “wife,” and “husband” in them get more search hits than those that don’t, and understandably so. So my project this week is to go back through all of my old posts and somehow incorporate those words into the articles. Shouldn’t be that hard.

What do you think? Overdoing it, or worth the work to drive more visitors to the site?

Check it out: you may have noticed a new addition to the Romance Tracker sidebar! That big green button will let you join the Romance Tracker community at MyBlogLog, a source for you to reach out and connect with like-minded readers and writers. Check it out if you get a chance!

And for you bloggers who are already a member of MyBlogLog, go ahead and steal the button for your website! I designed it, but you can have it. Toss out a link back to Romance Tracker if you get a chance, but it isn’t a requirement. Have fun!

So you’ve already learned the secret to watching romantic movies with your significant other . . . but you don’t know what movie to pick for a fun date or a special, romantic night together?

Look no further! Romance Tracker’s extensive poll on the most romantic movies of all time is finally complete, and the top ten picks may surprise you. It’s a pretty diverse list; some good-old classics, a few of modern titles, and multiple genres to boot. But all of them have a few important things in common: great writing, great originality, and great romance.

So look through the list, pick out a couple that sound good to you, and curl up on the couch with your sweetheart for a great night full of old-fashioned romance. Your boyfriend, girlfriend, wife or husband will thank you for it . . . just make sure you don’t forget the popcorn.

And if you have your own opinion on a romantic movie you think should have been on our list, why not let our readers know by leaving a comment below?

The Top Ten Most Romantic Movies of All Time

1. Casablanca

The most romantic movie of all time has more than just romance; there’s also murder, mystery, patriotism, bar fights, and . . . dead Nazis! It just doesn’t get much better than that. And the final scene, when Rick gives Ilsa the famous “hill of beans” speech before sending her off with Victor, is probably the greatest example of selfless love in cinema history. If you don’t know what “we’ll always have Paris” means, you need to go rent this movie now.

2. Edward Scissorhands

Tim Burton has made some pretty weird doggone movies, but Edward Scissorhands is an amazing modern romantic fairytale. Everyone can relate to the story of a person whose heart aches for someone who they could never have, but Edward’s character embodies “so close, yet so far” like no other. How the heck can you hold the person you love when you have razor blades for fingers?

3. An Affair to Remember

Hollywood has rewritten this one a few times in recent years, but there’s still no substitute for the original. The final scene, when Nicky Ferrante sees his painting and realizes that Terry is paralyzed, is one of the greatest in cinematic history. If you make it to the credits without at least feeling some twinge of emotion, then you’re officially a sociopath.

4. The Princess Bride

This 1987 fairytale classic gets a little silly at times, but even with the bad jokes and midgets in rat costumes it still ranks up there as one of the greatest romance movies of all time. I don’t know if true love can really bring a man back from being “mostly dead,” but this movie sure makes you think it’s possible. As you wish!

5. Cyrano de Bergerac

Okay, there have been about a million movies made out of this classic, tragic story, and I’m sure they’re all pretty darn good. Even Roxanne, the modern version that stars Steve Martin as a big-nosed firefighter, isn’t too bad. But My favorite is the 1990 French version starring Gerard Depardieu, and if you can stand reading subtitles it’s one heck of a date movie.

6. Somewhere in Time

Okay, the idea of some dude using self-hypnosis to travel back in time is kind of lame, but once you get past that, this is a great romantic date movie. The idea that a person’s one true love might exist in a different time is pretty original, albeit depressing, and Christopher Reeve and Jane Seymore are great on screen together. And if Richard hadn’t left that damn penny in his pocket, they might have stayed that way.

7. Romeo and Juliet

Come on, I had to include this one on the list. It’s another romantic classic that has been done countless times on the big and small screen, with the most original probably being the modern version with Leonardo DiCaprio where everyone was walking around with automatic firearms. But the Romeo and Juliet on this list is referring to the 1968 Franco Zeffirelli version, so rent that one.

8. Braveheart

Yah, there’s a lot of blood and guts in this movie, but remember: William Wallace cut up all those Englishman because they killed his one true love. That, along with the fact that this is such an awesome movie, gives it a secure spot on the list of the most romantic movies of all time. So what if the title sounds like a Care Bear?

9. The Quiet Man

Not a lot of our generation has seen this movie, but believe me, they’re missing out. Just like “Casablanca,” “The Quiet Man” is more than just a romance movie; it’s also hilarious, has some great drunken brawls, and is about a boxer who is trying to run away from a past he’s ashamed of. And you can chalk up the kiss between John Wayne and Maureen O’Hara, during the windstorm on in the field, as the best ever.

10. The African Queen

Yup, that’s two Humphry Bogart movies on this list, but he deserves it. “The African Queen” lets us watch as the pious Rose Sayer reforms hard-drinking Charlie Allnut with her love . . . and they go on to totally sink a Nazi battleship together! Toss in some awesome rapids and a cool scene with leeches, and you’ve got a top-notch date movie.