Full disclosure – I’m not a Valentine’s Day kind of woman. I find the whole thing a bit too cutesy and twee and I don’t do cutesy and twee. But all the notes, posts, messages, etc. all over my social media timelines did make me start thinking about some of my favorite love songs, couples, and more in pop culture.

And thus, I give you a few of my favorite television couples, movie couples, literary pairings, and love songs of all time. Full disclosure, many of these lists are subject to change over time and warning, there may be some spoilers in some comments. So proceed with caution.

Also, turns out I had a lot of feelings about a lot of these picks so the post got a little long. So I decided to break it into two separate posts. Enjoy and opinions are always welcome. Yes, even if it is to disagree with me.

Five Favorite Television Couples

1. Doug and Carol (ER) – Yes, it’s true. The ER writers initially planned to kill off Carol’s character in the Pilot episode. If you will recall, when we first met the character, she was being rushed to the ER after attempting suicide, following her split with, yes, Doug. So okay, not exactly the healthiest and most positive start to this relationship. And let’s face it, Doug was an awful romantic partner at the start of the series – riddled with emotional issues, selfishness, promiscuous, the list was long. But the ER writers were no amateurs and they did an amazing job slowly rebuilding the connection between the two and establishing them as one of the most romantic television couples of all time. And of course, there was the obvious fact that Julianna Margulies and George Clooney were just magic together. I mean that final scene when Carol went to Seattle for Doug – need I say any more?

2. Pacey and Andie (Dawson’s Creek) – Yeah, I said it (come at me Pacey/Joey shippers). I know for many, no other pairing existed on Dawson’s Creek but Pacey and Joey and every other teen pairing since has been measured by their standard but sorry, not sorry, I never got the hype. Mostly because I believe the Pacey and Andie pairing was unfairly torpedoed to facilitate the Pacey and Joey pairing. And I have never forgiven the writers. I’ve read many times how Joey was the first person to believe in Pacey and see so much in him. Nope, wrong – that was Andie. All one has to do is re-watch Season 2 and you will see one of the most beautifully tender, innocent, and powerful teen love stories ever. Andie was damaged in a way that Pacey loving her alone couldn’t fix but her love made him believe in himself in a way he never had before. The scene when he gets her out of the bathroom before she goes off to the institution is one of the most beautiful of the entire series.

3. Simon and Alisha (Misfits) – So full disclosure, I only watched this show last year. So yes, a full four years after it ended. But you know what they say, better late than never. And it was well worth it. Not only because the show was brilliantly funny, but because it led to my discovering the pairing of Simon and Alisha. I think it’s fair to say that no one saw that pairing coming when the show first started. Let’s face it, Simon was a weird, loner creeper and Alisha was a wild child, completely interested in Curtis. Then the writers flipped the script, introducing a mysterious character that turned out to be the future Simon. And future Simon turned out to be kind of insanely hot and had this amazing chemistry with Alisha. Kudos to Iwan Rheon who managed to brilliantly pull off both weird, awkward Simon and sexy, confident Simon. Alas, theirs was a love that was doomed. Alisha would be murdered, only for Simon to buy the power to go back in time to try to stop her death again. So basically, they are forever stuck in a emotionally wrought time warp where history will keep repeating itself – i.e. they fall in love only for Alisha to die somehow or Simon does, trying to save her. It’s the most beautifully tragic thing. And did I mention how hot they were together?

4. Seth and Summer (The O.C.) – They gave us the word “adorkable”. Seriously, no other couple so perfectly defined that term. Yes, things started a little weird with Seth’s very pitiful unrequited love for Summer. But the writers quickly realized that they had struck gold with Adam Brody and Rachel Bilson’s chemistry and the Seth/Summer ship quickly set sail. He was awkward and weird, she was adorable and tiny, she was often simultaneously charmed and annoyed by his dorkiness, he thought she was the most perfect thing in the world and together they were just…well, adorkable (cue heart eyes emoji).

5. Felicity and Ben (Felicity) – Okay, the later seasons were kind of rough and well not so great. And yes, there was the slightly stalker weirdness of Felicity switching universities to follow Ben to NYU just because he wrote a “wished I had gotten to know you” in her high school yearbook. But putting that aside, Kerri Russell and Scott Speedman were simply magic together that made the pairing work, no matter how much ridiculous crap the writers threw at them. I mean who could forget the summer of “who did Felicity choose – Ben or Noel”.

Five Favorite Movie Couples

1. Sam Baldwin and Anna Reed (Sleepless in Seattle) – The only proof you need of how amazing this pairing was, is the fact that the two characters never share a scene until the last five minutes of the film. And yet, you find yourself rooting so much for them to be together and falling madly in love with them. Yes, some credit goes to the amazing writing but let’s face it, this was mostly down to the brilliance of Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan. Two actors, talented enough to sell the audience on a love story without sharing the screen.

2. Edward and Vivian (Pretty Woman) – There were so many ways this film could have gone so wrong. I mean a hooker with a “heart of gold” meets a rich millionaire and they fall in love? I can imagine the skeptical eye rolls that pitch got from some Hollywood cynics. But work it did, not least of all because of Julia Roberts’ warm and effervescent portrayal of Vivian and the irresistible chemistry between her and Richard Gere. It made you laugh, sigh, swoon, and fall in love.

3. Quincy and Monica (Love & Basketball) – Who doesn’t love a good old “best friends who grow up next door to each other” love story? Add in a little basketball for the sports lovers and you have one of the most romantic movies of the early 2000s. Quincy and Monica’s love story had it all – childhood friendship, popular guy with best friend pining for him, athletic ambitions getting in the way, breakups, heartbreaks, family drama, etc. But most of all it had the amazing chemistry of Sanaa Lathan and Omar Epps.

4. Romeo and Juliet (Baz Luhrmann’s Romeo + Juliet) – Sorry Titanic lovers but before there was Rose and Jack, there was Leonardo Dicaprio’s awesome turn as the ill-fated Romeo Montague to Claire Danes’ Juliet Capulet. To fully grasp how significant it is that this even makes my list, you have to know that I don’t consider Romeo and Juliet a love story and instead just see it as a tragedy of two immature idiots. Harsh but true. But such is the testament to how amazing Leo and Claire were in this film that for two hours at least, I fell in love with this couple. Set against the backdrop of an amazing soundtrack, everything about those two had my young, impressionable self, swooning. The aquarium scene people – the aquarium scene.

5. Jack Twist and Ennis Del Mar (Brokeback Mountain) – What can I say? I am a sucker for a beautifully tragic love story and this one sure as hell falls into that category. You knew it wouldn’t last but a part of you still hoped and rooted for them. I lost count of how many times Jake Gyllenhaal and Heath Ledger broke my heart in this film. This was the role that first told the world how brilliant Heath Ledger was and sadly we wouldn’t get to see that brilliance for many more years to come. But man,  were we lucky to get what we did. The final shot of Ennis cradling Jack’s shirt after learning of his passing is one of the most heartbreakingly beautiful moments in movies of all time.