Hopeless romantic

A phrase that has been consistently confused for “HELPLESS romantic”, but people continue to use because people who know better are so afraid to correct erroneous or nonsensical words these days. The original phrase “HELPLESS lover” means someone who CAN’T HELP falling in love, e.g. they fall in love very easily. “Hopeless romantic” may have become a joke that’s a play on the originally phrase, implying that someone loves romance but it ends up badly for them. Unfortunately millennials and younger generations took “hopeless romantic” as the synonymous with HELPLESS romantic and ran with it without anyone ever correcting it.

“Yeah, I’m a bit of a hopeless romantic.”
“Uh, you mean *helpless* romantic?”