#romance thoughts

Now, in life and in fiction as a whole, romantic love is not the be-all, end-all. There are so many other fundamental and important experiences that a person can have outside of falling in love. And I believe that fiction should tell all of those stories, because they’re important.

However, while ACOTAR is fantasy, it’s also a romance series. And in a romance, the love story between the central characters is, by definition, the driving force of the story. Part of the reason readers love the romance genre is because romance is such a fundamental part of our lives. True love brings joy and even transformation.

I believe that one of the best things that the romance genre can do is expand our notions about romantic love. The genre can and has helped us realize that love doesn’t have to be between cis-het men and women who get married and have babies as soon as possible. It’s given us LGBTQIA+ love stories, polyamorous love stories, love stories about finding love in every race and culture, as well as interracial love stories. Romance has helped rewrite sexual norms in the bedroom and beyond it. At its best, this genre shows us that we are all worthy of love, respect, acceptance, joy, and pleasure.

I truly believe that when people say that the women of ACOTAR don’t have to end up with anyone, they mean this in the best and most feminist sense. But I don’t think it’s more feminist to live without romantic love, or to take the romance out of the romance genre. And I also think there’s a sense of snobbery to it: I am the one who truly gets what these characters need.

I think that to say that characters in a romance series deserve better than romance is like saying that the characters in a mystery deserve to live in a world without crimes to be solved, or that characters in a thriller shouldn’t have to experience that shocking twist. That might be true if they were real people, but then they wouldn’t be in these books.

As a reader, what I want for Elain and Gwyn and Emerie and Mor (and any other beloved character in a romance), is that they come into their own and claim their power. I also want them to find love that brings them joy. But mostly, if I’m being very honest, I want all of this to happen in a way that keeps me entertained. Because at the end of the day, as much as I treasure them, these are fictional characters in a romance series.

What I want for the people in my life, in addition to love that brings them joy, is a community and larger society that supports them whether or not they find romantic love. For example, when you think about it, isn’t it weird that married couples pay less in taxes than single people? Isn’t it weird that when you’re single, everyone wants to ask if you’re dating anybody? That people will still get married to the wrong person because they feel so isolated as a single person? Those, to me, are the things that need to be fundamentally reimagined, not the genre that is focused on one kind of fundamental, joyful human experience.

Why can't things be like a romantic novel, I think that thought so many times. I think of books I read as a teenager and not being able to wait to have someone feel those things for me and make me feel like I was floating on clouds. To want to be wanted in more ways than just physically.

Then you grow up, you get into relationships and there nothing like you imagined...that feeling you expected to feel doesn’t happen quite like you thought and everything is more complicated than expected.

You feel those emotions at the start and then your involved but then they dissipate or turn into something different.

The expectation for men to act like the men in romantic novels is always looked at as an impossible, unreachable task. 

But I’ve never understood why...

You care about someone, you love them, so show them. 

Continue to show them regardless of the amount of years you’ve been together or if you think they should just know you love them.

Butterflies only dissipate due to partners losing that want to continue to show their partners how much they mean to them and shower them in the same honeymoon phase dust that they had in the beginning.