Ok, let’s go through this valley of the shadow of death once more.
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I am going through some storms and challenges at the moment, and as far as I am concerned, I am not looking for any additional trouble.
I was sitting last week with my therapist, talking about my recent adventures, and I guess she really tried to help me.
She asked me what I learned from them and what I could have done differently.
I think I did nothing, and if I did something, I did no wrong.
Your Honour, here I am, innocent as one can be. I am mainly just sitting at home, working, and stressing about various other aspects of my life.
Heartache may be trying to find me, but I dodge it by avoiding any chance of letting myself get into another weird entanglement with all the unexciting defensiveness I can muster.
Warm but also very emotionally detached and, in general, motherly, overtly sweet and gracious would be the castra munita I currently occupy. Good luck with your siege. My walls? Impenetrable.
So maybe I should talk about other people’s love stories, fictional or not.
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Initially, I wanted to write this love-related post about my disdain for popular romance books and movies.
I really don’t understand why I am not the perfect target audience for them, even though I do love love and am still romantic in many ways and affectionate to a fault.
Then, some things happened, and I changed my mind several times about what I wanted to write about.
A friend of mine also politely suggested the title of this love-themed post as ‘No More Forgiveness for You, Bitches‘.
It was referring to all of my many glorious ex-flames and several essays I have posted trying to forgive them and other people who wronged me. But I guess I am not angry enough for that, either.
So, as amusing as it could have been, no vindictiveness will happen here today.
I am just a little tired. Also, as of the last few months, I have been very, very non-romantically inclined. My heart just needs some rest and probably kindness, and I am not really able to tremble much with excitement.
Not the best romance heroine to have by any means.
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So I guess, let me talk about romance books a little – this is not necessarily disdain, just puzzlement.
As I said, I don’t understand it – I really should like love stories more.
I recently read ‘Funny Story,’ the best-ranked modern romance book of 2024 on Goodreads.
Written by popular author Emily Henry, I will never touch anything she created again, and I only finished this one in preparation for writing a ‘love’ post.
I powered through the audiobook— it is pretty nicely written in terms of style, but that is the only good thing I can say about it.
Whenever I read popular contemporary romance books of this sort with a female protagonist, I can almost see the working cogs in the (female) author’s brain.
Question number one is: how do I make her likeable and relatable to as many women as possible?
She must be believable to inspire love and desire in others but not too conventionally attractive. We need to convince ourselves that hot guys find mediocre women hot if they are only sweet enough. For some reason, they never exercise while drinking a lot of wine and eating pastries as some form of radical protest against body shaming and the fact that calories exist (they remain good-looking, though).
She needs to be nice but also feisty and a bit more complicated, so she is not too bland. Some minor trauma is appreciated, but nothing more distasteful than a neglectful parent.
She also needs to have a job that makes sense in the modern world, some ambition, and something endearing, like an elderly single dad who bakes. She needs to advocate feminism in a way but not be too in-your-face about it; we are here for joyful individualism, not annoying politics.
The main male character has to be sexy and have a history of debauchery to add to the sexy element, but he has been through something and has changed now (for the better and less shallow, because all men change in that direction with more age and trauma, obviously).
There also needs to be some miscommunication, but not too much, because, of course, everyone reads complaints about it being the plot driver for every romance story in existence. So our characters, as of the 2020s, will be mature and respectful but will make some unexpected and unpreventable mistakes that will lead to tragic misunderstandings.
All of this also applies to this book called ‘Funny Story,’ Therefore, whenever I read any accolades about its originality, I want to cry a little. I haven’t even read that many books of this genre, and it is enough for me for the rest of my life.
I don’t know if I believe in romantic love anymore, but I definitely want to publicly announce that I do not believe in the contemporary romance genre at all, and it will require a really brave man or woman to prove me otherwise.
And also the endings. These miserable, predictable endings.
If it is a romance book taking place in London, then unfortunately, we cannot send them to a gulag in Siberia at the end, good old Russian-style.
One of them cannot die of malaria either. They need to fight at the end (not in a war, just argue about seeing their exes or something ridiculous like that) and then get back together to warm everyone’s heart truly.
It also gives you hope that you might be broken, but your heart can be unbroken again, magically somehow, if the man is only sexy enough and did some CBT.
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The main female character in this type of story never plays power games because, I guess, then they would be considered toxic, and that is not what we want in a heartwarming romance.
Meanwhile, when it comes to love and romance in real life, we are bombarded with information about playing the game cold, seduction and being machiavellian.
I got into this a little bit when I was scarred by the menace of modern dating following almost a decade in a semi-stable relationship.
Ideally, these days, I would be ultra-intelligently seduced by someone with good intentions (though are people with good intentions able to seduce?), and I would still not leave my house at all and receive my own accolades for doing nothing special.
What I am trying to say is that I want to turn off my brain for once and let myself be manipulated, but in a pleasant way, with only positive consequences.
That is my dream romance book I want to live in.
It would be nice not to have to be defensive for once, but unfortunately, that is not in the cards for me for now.
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Recently, I read about Erik Satie’s love life—the Gymnopédies guy.
He is believed to have only one love affair in his entire life and it sounds so very sad and stupid.
It lasted only five months, and his beloved was a female painter, Suzanne Valadon. He proposed to her after they had sex just once.
He became completely obsessed and wrote about “her whole being, lovely eyes, gentle hands, and tiny feet.” His mind and body were so on fire for her that he had to compose to calm down for a moment (relatable).
After five months, she said something like, “See you,” and moved out, leaving him a portrait she had painted of him. That was the end.
I wonder whether Satie’s therapist would have asked him about what he had learned.
I mean, not proposing after one night is definitely an easy takeaway. Even if it was so good, it could have been a fluke, Erik.
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I believe that we all want to be seduced and softened, yet we harden ourselves, because how can we not when life tends to be unkind?
Maybe we even want to be stupid and a little pathetic like Satie, yet we fear that the only way to have romance is to be self-protective.
We know we want to bestow our heart to someone, yet we fear how badly it can end, like for poor Erik, who was left with “nothing but an icy loneliness that fills the head with emptiness and the heart with sadness”.
Satie went through a phase after that and started dressing completely differently, calling himself “the Velvet Gentleman.” It sounds miserable and adorable, and we probably do not wish this fate on our worst enemy.
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Well, maybe we don’t all want it. An ex-lover of mine told me recently that he only really loved someone when he was ‘in a really bad place’; apart from that, he had no inclination or desire to be genuinely in love ever again. Transactional relationships sounded absolutely valid to him.
After learning this, I estimate that if I had stayed with him, my lifespan would have been reduced by around 45% due to misery and lack of willingness to cope with this crap anymore.
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Yet, I admire his directness and his ability to know what he wants. As I said, I am so tired now that I have no real opinion whatsoever about anything.
I am not the best protagonist of this romance book, whatever it is, due to my lack of agency and drive. There are basic writing mistakes going on here. But maybe at least some will find it relatable again.
I am also aware that it is universally believed that the best love stories directed at women include a lot of yearning.
Like in Fleabag, where the main character speaks loudly with desperate desire in her voice about the neck of the priest she wants to have relations with, but he loves God more, therefore yearning.
We all can feel that allure, and the lack of fulfilment can be endlessly intoxicating and arousing.
I haven’t had any real heartache or yearning in around two years now (well, at least not of a romantic nature).
Do I miss it? Probably not.
When I look at my feelings from back then, they feel unreal and easy to laugh at. Or maybe I see it this way as a coping mechanism to allow myself to graduate to a more serious adult.
Can you really expose your shameful heartache apart from art if you want to be treated seriously? Or maybe all you can talk about in a polite, mature conversation is how well your healing journey is going and how you nomen omen forgave everyone?
Including yourself. Hating yourself probably makes people very uncomfortable.
Well, I am not sure, but dwelling on your humiliating pain could be a good inspiration for art, but it is not very productive in general. Nothing really fruitful will come out of it long term, and your life force can dry away.
And you want to be fruitful, and you want to create, hopefully, something better than another useless romance book. Maybe even something that can nourish others with its fruits.
In most situations, unless you live inside of a love story, where the events must dramatically turn around on the last twenty pages… sucking it up and moving on quickly is probably good, actually?
Nobody would want to write about it, but at least you won’t start calling yourself a velvet gentleman.
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I Loved You Yesterday, Kazimiera Iłłakowiczówna
I loved you yesterday, but today—no more,
Though echoes of your voice still cling to the walls,
Though shadows of your hands still tremble on my sheets,
My heart has turned cold, like water in falls.
I loved you yesterday, but today—all that’s left
Are traces of lips, once melting like wax,
Lingering in air, like unopened letters,
Like forgotten dreams at dawn’s fragile cracks.
I will not call you, nor welcome you near,
No longing, no sorrow, no whispers in vain.
I loved you yesterday—today, just indifference,
A wall stands between us, and silence remains.
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“I saw my life branching out before me like the green fig tree in the story. From the tip of every branch, like a fat purple fig, a wonderful future beckoned and winked. One fig was a husband and a happy home and children, and another fig was a famous poet and another fig was a brilliant professor, and another fig was Ee Gee, the amazing editor, and another fig was Europe and Africa and South America, and another fig was Constantin and Socrates and Attila and a pack of other lovers with queer names and offbeat professions, and another fig was an Olympic lady crew champion, and beyond and above these figs were many more figs I couldn’t quite make out. I saw myself sitting in the crotch of this fig tree, starving to death, just because I couldn’t make up my mind which of the figs I would choose. I wanted each and every one of them, but choosing one meant losing all the rest, and, as I sat there, unable to decide, the figs began to wrinkle and go black, and, one by one, they plopped to the ground at my feet.”
― Sylvia Plath, The Bell Jar
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Mark 11:12-25 12 The next day as they were leaving Bethany, Jesus was hungry. 13 Seeing in the distance a fig tree in leaf, he went to find out if it had any fruit. When he reached it, he found nothing but leaves, because it was not the season for figs. 14 Then he said to the tree, “May no one ever eat fruit from you again.” And his disciples heard him say it.
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PS. I also tried spicy fantasy romance, but that slayed me after around 50 pages.
PS2. Adding proposed music to your post is kind of obnoxious, but if you are sad, listen to Gymnopédies. Why not? You could do worse.
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PS3. Gymnopédie is defined as a “nude dance, accompanied by song, which youthful Spartan maidens danced on specific occasions”. If someone is interested in reviving this tradition (with some needed modifications), please sign me in.
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PS4. Is there someone who would actually walk with you through the valley of the shadow of death and make you fear no evil? Do you think the authors of Psalms felt this way about God for reals? If yes, it really makes me yearn to go back to religion even more than my default, which is normally quite a lot anyway for a reasonable agnostic.
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PS5. Maybe the next one will be on anger. Our machiavellian guru, Robert Greene, said after all that you should not try to repress or avoid anger or love, and that you should instead examine these emotions. Shouldn’t they come hand in hand.
