“I’ve always supported myself. I like the sense of knowing exactly where I stand financially, but there is a side of me that longs for a knight in shining armor.” Barbara Feldon
Last but not least (and a long time coming) we have acts of devotion, i.e. gifts flowers, poems, songs, and an unknown category known as “sweet favors”. I interpret this last bit as a wide range of possibilities, if you have ever been to a castle you know they had all kinds of hiding places where they could likely accomplish a lot.
This brings to mind that diamonds might have been a girl’s best friends for longer than we have realized. 
In modern times Hallmark has assisted new age knights in winning fair ladies favor, and possibly allowed them to become a bit lazy with the made to order “perfect” sentiments in close proximity to beautiful chocolate creations.
In addition to tangible objects and laments of love, men have continued to attempt to impress their women with stories of bravado and physical feats. Today, however, these tales have morphed somewhat and are of tough WoDs (workout of the day) from CrossFit. Somehow the number of burpees and box jumps a man has completed in 15 minutes is way less sexy than the idea of him slaying a dragon or jousting some other dude (this could have something to do with running at each other with long sticks. Eeeekkk!!! Not that I advocate a man placing himself in danger in an attempt to win my favor). Usually these stories are finished with something akin to “Man, after only 90 seconds, I was sweating like a beast!” Hmmmm… 90 seconds was all it took? At least for me this just doesn’t set the stage for a whimsical romance.
True devotion a la Google searching is currently most associated with Buddhism
followed by Christianity (I guess most churches don’t pay SEO companies to optimize their sites). When searching on Scholar, I discovered analyses and theories of what constitutes “caring”, “love”, etc. Not surprisingly, the relationship literature was void of anything that had to do with circus-like demonstrations or even things that could be defined as gallant. 
These articles spoke about commitment, honestly, loyalty, trust, and most importantly time; a far cry from the Louis Vuitton bag or Bling that so many I have personally heard say they deserve if their man is truly devoted to and loves them.
Over the years I have hallucinated that devotion was many things: grocery store flowers, a Charlie the Tuna Fish shirt (I tried not to read too much into that one), an outfit from my favorite store, or jewelry. 
Unfortunately, likely not. I have learned that money via checks in the mail, romantic promises of amazing future vacations (think sweet nothings and concentrate on the word “future”), and acting extremely possessive of me in front of my father (and even starting a fight with him to protect my honor, which is still brought up at family gatherings) are most definitely not.
So what equals true devotion? Is it tales of a strenuous under 20 minute battle with a kettle bell (“I like looking good for you babe”)? Is it cute texts littered with love emojis
(kiss, kiss, hug, heart, weird smiley face with hearts for eyes x 3. Wow! He like really super loves me! It truly doesn’t get much better than that right?)? Is it the trendy “push present” that is often exorbitant and for something that is going to hopefully happen no matter what (i.e. the baby has to come out anyway right?)?
whatreallyhappenswhennotlooking 
