Okay, I'm a few days late for a true Valentine's Day post but since I don't celebrate it I think the fact that this is in the same week is pretty darn good.
And truthfully when I first decided to write this I didn't even think about the fact that Valentine's Day was just a few days ago.
BUT it still totally counts as a romantic Valentine's Day post.
So let's get started.
I'm not a big romance fan.
I mean the books. When I was a kid I used to read a few Harlequin novels. I also read a few Westerns. Those were the books my parents read. Mom had a continual stack of Harlequin's and Dad a continual stack of Westerns. They were exchanged every month at Don's for a new stack. And I got my books as well. And my library books. But I almost always ran out of reading material before the month was over. So I read my books, Jeff's comic books, Mom's romance books, and Dad's Western books.
And every once in awhile in my 20s I would pick up the latest "you have to read this!" romance novel. But for the most part I really don't like them.
Romance is genre fiction. So most of it follows the genre check list for "romance." There's the meet, the get together (or almost together for variety), the thing that tears them apart, the reconciliation and the happily ever after. And back in the day is was almost always a simple misunderstanding or cross communication that tore them apart and the happily ever after was always a wedding.
Boring.
I mean you can't enjoy the first part of the story because you are waiting for the part you know is coming that is going to fuck everything up.
You can't be too concerned about the part that fucked everything up because you know it's all going to be okay in the end.
And why are you getting married when one simple misunderstanding almost wrecked your whole relationship?
So for the most part I read other books and sometimes there is "romance" in there. I mean, I feel really badly for teenagers who grew up reading all of those books with love triangles. They are all pretty sure there should always be two wonderful yet different guys they have to choose from. One rich and blond, one brunette with a good heart. Honey, you are going to be lucky to find a super decent redhead who loves you like water, don't try to create drama.
As you can tell, the love triangle bits are my least favorite parts of the story.
BUT...I have a lot of friends who read romance. And there are a lot of different types of romance out there now. Though a lot of it, let's be frank, isn't romance, it's erotica but it makes people feel better to say women are reading romance novels instead of women are getting turned on by some freaky shit. And some of it is really freaky. Like, I don't want to kink shame you, as long as you aren't hurting anyone, everyone is of age, and everyone is consenting, you do you, but honestly...what the hell?
So anyway...
The Bloggess has her Fantastic Stranglings book club and I joined back when she first started. The books she has chosen have been probably 80% books I never would have picked up on my own. But half of those have been really good. I've enjoyed getting exposed to different things than I normally would have. So when Nowhere (her bookstore) started the Happy Endings Book Club (romance novels, yes, it's funny) I thought, okay, I'll give those a shot.
So I've been reading a romance book a month. And...
Still not my favorite genre. I've got two more to catch up on and then I'll probably stop.
I mean I appreciate the choices that have been made in selecting the books. Queer couples. Body positive couples. Flipped gender expectations. Lots of abbreviations that I need to clear my history after looking up. It's been eye opening and interesting and makes me happy to see a lot of it. BUT...it's still, meet, get together, torn apart, back together, happily ever after. With a shocking amount (to me) still ending in marriage. Like there are all of these norms being broken and yet we still end up at I do.
But reading them got me wondering about them. Why are they still so very popular? I mean, like I said, the basic structure has not changed the whole time I've been reading them, and that's got to be somewhere around 45 years. And I have to think they were the same before that for decades. I mean, Romeo and Juliet did it a little more than slight misunderstanding, but still, meet cute, almost together, misunderstanding tears them apart, reunited in death, maybe a happily ever after?
Why do we like that structure?
Is it just wishing that life was always that tidy? That no matter what happens in your relationship it's easily put back together? Or are we worried when things are going too well? Like we feel like we need some sort of dramatic moment that tests the relationship?
I just don't get it.
Brent and I almost broke up in high school over a misunderstanding. A difference in the way we communicate. A moment that would have had really long lasting consequences if a friend hadn't run interference and said, "He means" and "She heard"; so you would think I would love these sorts of stories. It's our story. Meet, get together, misunderstanding, reconciliation, marriage. But when it happened it was awful. And it took a lot of patching up to get back to where we were on the same page. And then years of learning how to speak to each other in ways that the other person could hear and understand so it didn't happen again. It wasn't simple. It was heartbreaking and then hard work with more than a few tears.
But also with some things thrown in that you'd need to clear your browser history after searching so maybe not all that different...
So yes, there are a lot more queer love stories out there. And a lot more body positive stories. And a lot more sex positive. And a lot more gender expectations be damned. But there are still a ton of silly misunderstandings leading to no stakes consequences because it's all going to end up okay.
And maybe that's what is great about them.
It's all going to end up okay.
And can't we all use a lot more of that right now?
Maybe I'll read a few more after all.
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