I let my partner surprise and delight me with romance.

Letting is the hard part. Plenty of people want to be surprised and then take over the planning, checking the restaurant reviews, suggesting a better route, improving the gift into something they would have chosen themselves.

Being surprised means ceding control, which for organised people is genuinely uncomfortable. You have to accept a slightly worse plan, executed by somebody who is trying.

The delight was never really in the plan. It is in the evidence that somebody spent a Tuesday afternoon thinking about you.

Next time something is arranged for you, don't ask what it is. Just get in the car.