This semester, I am taking a course that is focused on reading short stories and discussing them in class that is basically required of every student. I was excited during the first week of classes because my professor had said that we would be reading and writing about various stories that were considered "love" Stories. Now I'm a hopeless romantic so of course I love reading any stories that deal with love and relationships, even if they are only a page long. Nevertheless, as I was reading the stories, I could feel my heart was not in them and I began to realize why. The older I become, and the more I learn about what love truly is, the more I find the lies hidden in every, single fake love story. The stories are all based on conflicts--whether inside or out--and consumed with so much drama that I can't even consider them to be about love anymore.
As a reader, we aren't looking for happily ever after when reading stories about love. If the story was about a typical relationship, no one would read past page two. We all want that drama, the girl who's in a terrible relationship and some strange guy comes around and swifts her off her feet. We want the no good and rotten husband so it's acceptable for the wife to cheat on him with the sexy man who moved in down the street. We want the jealously, the "I'll give up everything just to be with you" and the obsessiveness that comes along with male characters like Christian Grey. Our worst desires come alive within the pages, and it's starting to anger me.
I used to be a sucker for any romance novel, but now I can't stomach my way through them. The older I've become, the more I see the abusive and wrongness in the relationships I use to fantasize about. Edward Cullen should never have been considered cute for watching Bella Swan sleep through the night--hello, if that happened to one of us we would flip out and call the cops. Christian Grey should not be considered a romantic man, as he is basically very sick and emotionally as well as physically abuses Anna Steele. Our parents would never, ever want us to be in relationships like that--not to mention these people are obsessed with each other after going out once or twice.
Normally people aren't consumed with the person that they love unless they are 15 years old. As adults we just have too much going on and don't have enough time to be consumed by others. Also, guys aren't running up to us and asking us out on dates because they "saw us across the hall and thought we were the most beautiful person ever." Guys are as chicken as we are when it comes to falling in love! No one has any idea what the heck they are doing, and no 20-year-old guy is as smooth as butter.
No one seems to write a love story about Tinder, and or about how two people met at a bar and never saw each other again. No one writes about the actual problems occurring in a relationship, that don't involve the dramatic of choosing love over everything else in the world. Love stories just don't depict actually life anymore, and I can't read them anymore because I just don't connect with them.
Readers of romance novels get this sick, almost unnatural version of how relationships ought to be, when that isn't going to be the case at all. If people are actually that obsessed with each other, I would even go as far to see they need to seek professional help because they should be worried about more things in life than their significant other. Just because a significant other is not texting you every second of the day, taking you out on romantic dates every night, crossing rivers and oceans to find you, doesn't mean that they are mean and don't love you.
Everyone has other problems in their lives that they must deal with, from their careers, money, families, mental health, friends, co-workers, and more. They would not be able to function if all they did was worry about one person, even if they were some super hero who could fly and their main worry was saving the world. When we date people, we are normally taking on their problems as well and that seems to be forgotten in the midst of writing love stories.
All love stories love to write about the first meetings and love to rush through everything else while the couple is in the honeymoon phase. But that lovey-gooey phase doesn't last forever, and that's when the true testament of love comes into play. I would love to read a story about a long-term couple, and all the bumps and hills they went through to get where they were now. I would love to hear all the fights about dumb things, insecurities, and stresses that actually come with relationships. I'm tired of reading about intense jealousy, about damsels in distress, and about the cheating that occurs. I want a real relationship, not this bull we are expected to read from the books off the shelf.
A true love story would never sell in stores, however, because that is not what we as readers enjoy reading. We read for drama and to escape the world outside of our own. We live for fantasy and the make-beleive, however living in the make-believe for too long can lead us astray into what the actual world is like, compared to what we want it to be. If we live in our heads too long, we don't realize what is true. This is why I hate love stories because they have created this false world of expectation that is never going to exist for anyone. I want a story about real love, a story that will never sell because it doesn't play with our emotions as much as the others. I want a real love story because I am tired of being lied to, and I want everyone else to know what actual love is, not what they expect it to be.
