There are plenty of options that press themselves forward for consideration as the most romantic phrase we could ever utter to someone.
I will never leave you.
I feel utterly seen by you.
You are incomparably beautiful.
But we may need to go down another, more surprising, sterner route to really honor the inquiry.
If we define romantic in an effective sense, meaning helpful to the survival and enhancement of love, then we may need a very different approach.
We may need a sentence like, "If you ever stop being nice to me, I will leave you in short order." It may sound brutal on first reading, bitter, paranoid, a bit jumpy, far from what we imagine romantic to mean.
There must be a mistake.
But with a few ghastly experiences behind us, we'll know that this is precisely what we may need to say in a kindly but confident voice if the qualities on display in the sweet opening moments of love, tenderness, kindness, consideration, thoughtfulness, politeness, are not to give way in time to scratchiness, irritability, neglect, and infidelity.
It's a bitter truth that other people treat us more or less exactly in line with the way we imply that we can bear to be treated.
