Nomance and Cold Turkey

I have a shocking revelation to make.

I’m an avid reader of romance novels. In fact, I rarely read any other kind of fiction!

God, that was hard. It feels like such a shameful thing to admit! I don’t know anyone else who reads them, or at least, not who will admit to it. I mean, I know of lots of romance readers, and while away many a happy hour on this website, getting book recommendations and cackling away at the comments. But I don’t know any actual women who admit to loving romance novels. So I guess it’s something I should be embarrassed about.

Especially humiliating are the covers of these books. I can’t count the times I’ve been in Borders, reading the blurb on the back of a book, and thought “Hmm, sounds suitably racy. Yup, I’ll take it!” then flipped it over to discover a smouldering, topless hero on the front, all biceps and six pack and bronzed, oiled flesh, and steely stare that says “I’m coming to get you and you're gonna like it.” All very nice, of course, but seriously, how can I take such a thing to the counter and buy it? Even sandwiched between ‘The Economist’ and Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation, it would still be embarrassing. I imagine a knowing smirk on the assistant’s face as he scans the barcode and asks me if I wanted a bag to put it in. It’d be easier to buy if I had a bag on my head. And imagine reading such a thing on public transport. I don’t think I need to elaborate, the problem is obvious. Someone should start a business making false covers to put over embarrassing book covers, so you can pretend you’re reading a hardcore spy novel or something.

For the purposes of taste, I way prefer those romance covers that have pictures of overblown bouquets of flowers on them. Unfortunately, those books are normally about family sagas spanning four generations, and everyone in the family is female and never has any sex except with their distant cousins, and has secret babies and quilts a lot. Geez, I’m not reading something like that, life’s too short.

I don’t know why I’m addicted to romances. I don’t even like most of them. In the ones I end buying (on the basis of non-embarrassing cover/no great-great-grandmothers or quilting bees in the storyline) the female character is normally an American who talks like a cowboy – very irritating – and has ‘a great ass’. Shudder. The hero is always very keen to have children so he can take them to baseball games. Double shudder. And if you’ve ever been to the romance section of a bookshop (yeah I know, pretend you’re looking at the science fiction) you’ll find that, inexplicably, at least half of them are about vampires. What the hell is that? What’s wrong with women? Vampires and werewolves. Honestly. I may not know why I like romances but I do know why I’m embarrassed!

So, it’s a struggle to find a good one. And I’m not sure it’s such a good thing when I do – it makes me depressed about my own life. If only real relationships could be like a good romance! I get kind of down about my own at times. Normally I’m ok - I mean, I’m lucky to have a man I genuinely love, and I’m comfortably off, and I don’t live in England, thank God. So life should be perfect, right? Ok, so we haven’t had sex since like, April, but I’m MATURE now. Mature married couples are supposed to have a dead sex life, right? (Maybe too much information?...err, sorry.) But then I have these wake-up-in-the-milddle-of-the-night-knowing-with-sudden-clarity-that-everything’s-all-wrong-and-I’m-not-that-far-off-thirty-moments, and I can hardly breathe with panic. But hey, doesn’t everybody?

Maybe it’s time to lay off the romances for the sake of my inner peace. It is best not to raise expectations. The best advice I could give any girl is forget the handsome prince. Your happy ending is never coming. Princessy toy advertising makes my skin crawl because it’s inducting girls into the belief that our hero – ‘the one’ – is out there, and we owe it to ourselves to find him. It’s such crap, and I wish I’d never grown up thinking that, because I’d probably be happier now, less worried about the holes in my relationship and not hooked on the pathetic fantasies in romance novels.

I’m feeling so listless at the moment. But don’t mind me, I’m just withdrawing from caffeine. That’s right, I’ve decided to caffeine-proof my life! I’m down to one caffeinated drink per day, tea or coffee, and I’m finally listening to the people who’ve told me diet coke is the worse poison than Bindeez beads. (which by the way we’ll be serving up at our election party – they sound trippy!) The idea is that my complexion will become all peachy and glowing, I’ll have lots more energy, and of course the best bit: random beautiful women will stop me in the street and ask me for ‘my secret’. I’ll keep you posted.

Well, I can’t sit here working hard at my job all day! I have to meet a friend at the MacBogan Centre for lunch.