Treat yourself to `Romance 101'and learn the `Lessons in Love'

The Boston Herald

Boston Herald

Beverly Beckham

Gregory J.P. Godek, Boston's very own love guru, who taught a course in romance at the Boston Center for Adult Education for 10 years and authored "1001 Ways to be Romantic" plus "1001 More Ways to be Romantic," has published yet another romance book - just in time for Valentine's Day.

"Romance 101 - Lessons in Love," which follows on the heels of his previously published hot sellers, offers still more tips and help for the chronically romantic.

Godek never quits. Most guys have trouble coming up with a single romantic idea. This man can't keep a lid on his. They just keep pouring out of him - ideas, suggestions, exercises in love.

"Romance 101" is different from his previous books, however. It's more a "lesson" book than an "idea" book. It's his popular romance class between two covers. In it he addresses 64 different love topics, in alphabetical order, ranging from affection to vision and begins each with a great romantic quotation.

For example, accompanying sensuality is this definition of passion from "In a Dream You Can Do Anything, a Collection of Words":

When everything tastes like champagne

When everything smells like freesia

When everything looks like Christmas

When everything sounds like Mozart

When everything feels like velvet

- Veronica M. Hay

Godek's selection of romantic quotations is reason enough to own this book. That he lists Mozart in his acknowledgments right along with his personal friends shows that Godek practices what he preaches. This was a very romantic thing to do.

But back to "Romance 101." Absolutely, positively do not run out and buy it to give to your significant other for Valentine's Day. This is not Edna St. Vincent Millay. It's not even "The Bridges of Madison County." This is about learning how to be romantic and how to express affection.

"Romance 101" is to love what "Emily Post's Etiquette" is to manners. It is not the thing you buy for someone else for Valentine's Day. It's a book you buy for yourself.

"We are each of us angels with only one wing. And we can only fly embracing each other." - Luciano de Crescenzo

That's how Godek begins his chapter called "Togetherness."

The romantic thing to do would be to copy that quote onto a small piece of paper and attach it to a pair of one-winged ceramic angels. Or to draw a picture of two angels flying together and frame it.

Godek does not suggest this. But reading his book makes you think about these things. It makes you think about how you can show, in small ways, how much you value the person you love.

A friend always picks up her husband at the airport and never makes him take a bus home, no matter how stormy or how late the night.

"I know I spoil him, but he loves it." And she loves him. This is a way she can show it.

My mother-in-law used to heat the dinner plates at breakfast and lunch as well as dinner. Her husband didn't like cold plates. He never asked her to do this. She did it as an act of love.

"Talk not of wasted affection! Affection never was wasted . . ."

- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Showing love - for many it's difficult to do.

"I've asked thousands of people over the years why they're not more affectionate with their partners," Godek writes. "Men tend to say, `Affection is kid stuff' - it's fine while dating, but we're adults now' . . . Women tend to say, `I'm afraid he'll interpret all of my affectionate gestures as a prelude to sex.' "

You have to talk about affection. You have to communicate your wants and needs to the person you love. That's Godek's constant theme. It's pretty basic stuff. "Romance 101" doesn't tell us anything we don't already know. But we forget so easily that we need to be reminded.