A classic romantic comedy begins with a meet cute: Imagine bumping into someone in the school hallway, accidentally brushing your fingers with the cute barista’s as they hand you your drink, or falling in love with a beautiful stranger during a hectic commute.
The rom-coms of the ’90s thrived on these fated meetings, and we followed suit. Bustle points out that the underpinnings of ’90s rom-coms have also become our standards for the beginnings of a relationship: “the breadth of ’90s rom-coms represents the gold standard [of the genre].” They are cutesy, cheesy, and an all-around formulaic gush fest, and we fell for them hard.
Read more: I Keep on Falling: This fashion editorial explores falling in love (literally)
Through this curated playlist, let’s relive those smitten moments that our rom-com fantasies gave us. Here’s a list of songs that can take us back to a time when we passed secret love notes in between classes, the nerves of finally confessing our feelings, and commuting home together after realizing that the feelings were mutual all along.
Give our mixtape a listen below:
This story is originally published in our 34th issue and has been edited for web. The digital copy of Scout’s 34th issue is accessible here.
Art by Renz Mart Reyes