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Did anyone ever answer Bonnie Tyler’s question, “Where have all the good men gone?” or is she still ambling around somewhere, stuck in an 80s pop song and holding out for her hero?  It seems all we ever do is search, ruminate, put ourselves out there and even hunt for that special someone. True, our intentions are for the most part pure, but somewhere amid our Texts from Last Night and drunken Facebook status updates, we assume a false and less than genuine façade.

The next time you have a free minute, after you finally come to terms with the fact that you did indeed just “tap that,” I want you to look past the fact that it’s a whiny song from the decade that produced the worst hair to ponder this question: Where exactly have all the good boys–and girls–gone?

For those of you who have never heard of Cary Grant or the gentlemen he played in his films, I’ll throw in some equally honorable roles worth mentioning: Bogart in “Casablanca,” Peck in “Roman Holiday” and even Brando in “Guys and Dolls”–that is, before he decided to lead the Italian mob through a trilogy by making an offer everyone else couldn’t refuse.  And as for us ladies, the next time we are ready to head out on Friday night, would it kill us to ask WWHD: what would Hepburn do?

It seems our heroes of today cannot even tread water beside those who have withstood the test of time. Yes, we have Harry Potter, but before coming to his senses sometime between the last chapter and the epilogue, even he ditched Ginny so he could run off and save the world. Moving to television, just who exactly are the Kardashians?  What great acts have they performed to land them a TV show, and why does America care enough to watch it?

But this is what we read, watch, and even relish today.  Seems a little silly when you prop Edward Cullen next to Atticus Finch. And do not get me wrong; I understand that the world has never been perfect. But I think, what with the rise of technology and Facebook as the official means of communication to justify stalking, the personal touch that was once flourishing alongside a dozen long-stemmed red roses is now almost non-existent.

When was the last time you were on a date–[deyt] a social event scheduled with another beforehand, e.g.,  Jane has a date with Joe on Friday night–with someone?  This means that the guy did not text, Facebook message or Tweet, but called a girl,  planned an event, picked the girl up for the event,  drove her to the event,  paid for the expenses of the event,  drove her home, told her he had a great time, gave her a sweet kiss, and parted.  Not as popular as it should be, huh?

So I ask again: Are there any hopeless romantics left in the house?

The answer lands on a hopeful note: yes.  The truth is, we all had to come from those ancestors before us, who in turn came from their ancestors before them.  And if we trace back far enough, we will come across a Grant or a Bogart–or even a Hepburn or a Bergman–on a dangling leaf of our family tree.  The truth remains that Grant-ism, which has as its dogma those remnants of lady-like and gentlemanly manners,  lies within us all. For some it lies deeper than others, but it is within us all the same.  The real question is whether we chose to expose this open flame of romanticism, or if we would rather mask it by the winds of doubt, insecurity and walks of shame.

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