Ho.ly. Shit. First of all, please please forgive me for the wall of text that follows. I got a little.. passionate.

This is my life I swear. To a flipping TEE. When I first got together with my SO I made it abundantly clear that I was not interested in being wined and dined. I can pay my own way, and more importantly, I'd so much rather drink and play video games than spend a bunch on a fancy date anyway. I like things to be real, and don't want him to feel like he has to buy my love.

All that said.... At some point in our relationship this ended up being "we don't need to worry about romance, we have fun with, and love each other" whiiiiich.. Well obviously you know. It sucks feeling like you never get thought about (especially when you make the effort to create your own little gestures!)

And at this point you're painted into the "super-chill girlfriend" corner because you meant those things when you said them (and they're still (mostly) true) but you wanna be treated a little nice! And you don't want to have to go back on your word, like "I know I said these things don't matter but they do" because then you [feel like] you become "not-so-chill, pretending-to-be-cool girlfriend". Man, can you tell how relieved I am to find someone else who'd living this?

The top comment here really shit me because it's just got such a condescending tone of like "So what do you want? Go tell him. Duh. " Theoretically, sound advice. In practice, it's harder. You mentioned in a comment that your SO goes into that little spiral of self doubt? SAME THING. You just end up feeling so bad because really, they ARE wonderful and kind and you know they care, so it's tough feeling responsible for that kind of self-hate response. And then do you feel like you have to back track to make them feel better? Like "no no it's not that bad, it's barely anything, don't worry about it. "

I guess we have two options here, you and I. Stand up and say something, try and stay strong against the reaction, be thoughtful but firm.

Or, reevaluate. Are these things really hurting me/the relationship? Everyone has little flaws that we learn to live with, maybe we just accept this lack of romance as one of them?

I don't know. I still haven't figured that one out. Clearly. Otherwise you wouldn't be facing this wall of text. Sorry that I can't offer a solution. I guess I was just hoping that it might help knowing you're not the only one facing this conundrum!