Thinking about romance writing

The next time the Lebanese (?) owner of the restaurant saw her walk past, (I suspect that he was also strikingly handsome), there was a little argument…

Long story short, they have now been married for forty years! I heard this story directly from both of them, and they are both still very attractive now, so I can imagine how attractive they would each have been back then. They were both relating the story in such an animated way that I know they are very proud of their love story.

—–
That is literally all I know, so the rest I would just need to make up.  Additionally, before going ahead to actually make this into a story I think I would ask their permission first. But it is such a lovely story, and I have been thinking about it, chiefly the question of how their initial disagreement may have somehow managed to transform itself into a deep and abiding love, especially considering the racial differences (although these were perhaps not such an issue in Africa?)

But while I sit and daydream about this, it has raised another question in my mind, and that is this: is it constructive for me to sit here and dream about romance, and love, and love stories? Usually the only love story I swoon about is my own potential romance. Tied up with this, I feel as if I need to justify, if only to myself, why I write romances. Actually, a big part of the reason why I write romances is not just because they are easy to write and (female) people often love to read them – actually increasingly male people love to read them too (18% of romance readers are male, and there is certainly a growing number of male writers who are not afraid to boldly put their names as authors of romance books. Digressing a bit, I chuckle to remember the story of a man I read about possibly twenty years ago who churned out sappy romance after sappy romance – and then published them all under the name of his wife!)  No, a big part of the reason why I write romances is to counter my own cynicism about love and marriage. On one hand, I would sincerely love to get married. I’ve been playing the “lequel” game of late, that is, mentally circling around all the single men I know who might be even a little viable as potential husbands. And this assures me that yes, the desire to get married is still very much there. But on the other hand I am just so aware of so many things that could happen in relationships… So thinking on marriage, writing about these things, thinking about them helps maintain a positivity about marriage which might evaporate in the light of my more negative but realistic posts. And you know what, it is because I like to be tethered to reality that I like to focus on true life stories, as in this is what a great marriage could realistically look like, beyond all the challenges. OK, admittedly I also write fairy tale romances, but that is about exercising my imagination, and the focus of Cinderella was not so much the romance as the opulence.  That is, my fairytales are deliberately more about fantasy than romance.  I can’t give myself to some of the more sappy romances out there – they are just too unrealistic to truly inform my knowledge about marriage. What I mean is that I have no desire to fill my head with meaningless froth such as “your eyes are as beautiful as the sea” – no none of that, which usually equates possibly passing physical attraction to love. Rather I prefer thinking on what love truly is, what truly makes it beautiful, and what makes it worthwhile to join your life to that of someone else.

And before I forget (that is, I had already forgotten but writing this post triggered me to remember) – I had a thought that a great relationship can possibly be thought to excel in these  aspects: character, communication, compatibility, commitment, chemistry, Christlikeness.  So perhaps these would be a guideline that you could use to analyse your relationship.  Perhaps, to think further on it, some aspects could be considered “fixed”, in that a potential spouse or marriage either “passes” or does not. And then perhaps other aspects could be considered growable, in that you could work to grow them.  And then again if I were to think further perhaps I could order these different aspects in terms of importance, so for instance if no 1 is missing there is simply no point in checking for numbers 2 onwards.  But then this is where people are different, and where people are allowed to be different. What I might consider a fixed yes/no aspect might be considered growable by someone else, and we might all sensibly know for instance that character is most important, yet realistically you might be drawn into a relationship by strong chemistry.  What I am asking myself right now is this: how on earth does someone measure for commitment?!  Do you look to see how committed they are to other endeavours in their life?  Going by my own record with churches, you might be forgiven for thinking I am the least committed person on earth! I can’t end this post without shoehorning in this pun: Lord, please bring this six C man my way soon – geddit?!!!  And then someone will mention another word, perhaps sinCerity, and I would have to go out looking over the seven Cs! (As I said it is a bit shoehorned!!!)