Morantic

Word for the Day:
Morantic (Moh-ran'-tik)
1) Speech or action which is at the same time moronic and romantic
"I can't believe you drove all the way from Miami to Daytona and back to help out a woman you've only gone out with twice. That's so morantic!"

It's the kind of thing your friend does that you laugh at, but also kind of hope it works out well, because you secretly want to believe in love like this. But mostly just laugh at. If we're all honest with ourselves, we've all had morantic moments, times when we stepped, or sometimes strode, past the boundaries of common sense and social decorum in order to make a connection with someone or impress them. Some of us have travelled miles to meet someone, or spent money that we didn't have to get some time with someone. Some of us have sacrificed time with family or friends to waste it on someone who didn't care much about it. Some of us have even left work to change a tire for someone we've only been on two dates with, or pawned our television to take someone out to dinner.

The difference is that when we do it, we have perfectly good reasons, and great confidence that it will work out. When our friends do it, it is so obviously stupid that we can't understand how they can live with themselves, and seriously reconsider continuing a relationship with someone so stupid. Like the poet said, "O would some power the gift gie us, / To see ourselves as others see us." On the other hand, these lines were written by a guy who had a child by his mother's maid while also having twins with a woman who would have been his wife if her father had not forbidden it.