Hopelessly Hopeful

I believe its fair to consider myself a genuine hopeless romantic. To be clear, this means that I find the good in relationships and do my best to ignore or overlook all of the downsides that come along with being "involved" with someone (and that I openly enjoy watching chick flicks).The irony to this is that in all other facets of life I am a realist, doesn't quite line up. How can a realist look so forward to something that, in the end, is going to require a lot of patience and understanding as well knowing that there will be times I will have to agree with something that makes no sense because "its that time of the month?" Simple, its like Christmas. That feeling of being crazy excited to receive gifts from loved ones but even more excited to give your gifts so you can see the expression on their faces. Seeing someone crazy excited about the gift you thought of and then gave them makes pretending to be excited about that awful piece of clothing your great grandmother gave you worth it. In the same way, being loved is something I can most certainly look forward to but being able to unconditionally love someone because of who they are is all the more exciting. And knowing that in the great times will undoubtedly make up for the not so great ones. So, for all you hopeless romantics like myself who can't quite figure out why you allow yourself to seek out something that you know could hurt you or "complete" you, maybe seeing it from this "Christmas" perspective can help.