Why I’m not romantic and why I hate reading romance novels

I am sick today.  I have not been sick or down with the flu for the longest time.  I think my defenses are down because I have been hitting the ground running straight after returning from Bangkok and training every few days and then running in races every weekend since then.  It’s been like this for the past month.  So in my delirium, I don’t know why but I feel the need to write about this.  So perhaps when I am well again, I am going to read this and think it’s all utterly rubbish.  

It’s a question that many people, especially guys and past boyfriends have asked me time and time again.  It’s something that I have strived to understand myself.

Being an introvert, I spent most of my childhood and now my spare time reading.  I seek solace getting lost in books and retreating into dreams where only the best happened or what I want to happen.  Imagination is indeed a powerful tool and that I have plenty of from years spent bringing books to life in my mind.  That is why watching movies made from books I have read have often left me disappointed.  I could be Harry Potter or the Bella of Twilight.  I could make everything positive when the world I lived in was anything but.

Through reading romance novels (and I would like to clarify that I read all sorts of books), I think women have been utterly ruined by the concept of love.  Starting with Sweet Valley High as kids, our concept of love was getting the jock to love geeky little me.  Then as we grew older, we progressed to Mills and Boons, hiding the covers of the books behind home made cloth covers while we read on the subway and at the bus stops.   All the men were wealthy high-powered executives or doctors who had tough exteriors but ultimately they declared their love for us and only us.  This only reinforced how far away the books were from real life.

We grew up believing in fairy tales and knights in shining amour.  Modern books such as the Twilight Saga, A Discovery of Witches and Fifty Shades reinforce our concept of what we look for in a man.  Every one of these books was modeled on the Sweet Valley High/Mills and Boons formula.  Every heroine, whether she is sweet and innocent like Bella or Anastasia or tough and gutsy like Diana all have a core similarity in character.  They all yearn to be loved and loved unconditionally.  They wear their vulnerability on their sleeves and what comes along but the knight in shining amour.  In today’s age, the authors have upped the ante.  No longer are we dealing with mere wealthy and educated men, we are dealing with the supernatural.  These books are written by women who they themselves felt that love was elusive and unattainable.  Dissatisfied with what real men out there are offering us and their less than perfect nature, we are turned off by the failings and lack of hero status.  So what do we do?  We go back to the drawing board and start again. We write down everything that we ever wanted in a man.

In all three books, the hero is not just intelligent, cultured, good looking, and incredibly wealthy, he also knows how to love a woman, anticipates our every need, loves us unconditionally AND harbors a deep dark secret.  The heroine in us craves all of these qualities.  We want it all and most of all; we want a man we can save. 

How can the real man on the street measure up against a lifetime of books we have read since we were teenagers?  The truth and the gaping holes have left so many of us disappointed.  I have not read Fifty Shades yet but I don’t feel I need to.  From what I know of the book, the central theme remains the same albeit it’s disguised in soft porn. 

Throughout my whole life, I have searched wrongly for the knight in shining armour.  I have been conditioned to settle for nothing less than Edward, Christian (without the kinky f*ckery thank you) and Matthew.  How do I uncondition myself from this?

I am not sure I ever will and that is why I am seriously the most unromantic person on this earth.  I am not sure any man out there is going to melt my heart unless he has 4 legs and purrs.

James.. my first cat.  If he was a man, I would marry him!