Fairy Tale Romance: How Ya Fantasy Novels Ruined Dating for Me.
It’s your classic love story: girl discovers she has a world-changing destiny. Girl goes on dangerous adventure to fulfill that destiny. Girl meets boy who she doesn’t like at first but needs to help her fulfill said destiny. Through the trials of their shared adventure, girl and boy bond intensely. Girl and boy maybe start to have feelings for each other? Under threat of death, girl and boy finally admit said feelings. After finally saving the world, girl and boy share unbreakable bond of love and live happily ever after.
Right?
Obviously not, but my developmental years were spent devouring YA fantasy novels so this is the foundation of my conception of love.
I became obsessed with reading at six and, between then and 18, I sprinted through books at an alarming speed, abandoning homework, hygiene, human interaction, and sleep to find out what happened in a new story. I read in the car, at parties, in between classes, during dinner, and under very dim light in my bedroom at 4am so my parents wouldn’t find out I was still awake. I kept book journals where I recorded every book I read and filled up shelf after shelf with new ones, until every wall of my bedroom was lined with them. My parents’ apartment still houses more than 300 books that I collected during that time.
Most fantasy novels with a target audience of 10-14 year olds include a romantic subplot, the ones targeted at 15-18 year olds even more so. Romance is found in books from Harry Potter to Percy Jackson, from The Hunger Games to The Mortal Instruments. You have The Raven Cycle, The Grishaverse, Daughter of Smoke & Bone, The Shade Series, Vampire Academy, and of course, Twilight.
In all of these stories, love is star-crossed, destined, meant-to-be and although rife with conflict in the end it overcomes all obstacles. Or, if it doesn’t, it is heart-rending, gut-wrenching, tragic and traumatic. Either way, love--and most often, first love--changes the characters fundamentally, making it difficult if not impossible to love again.
And here’s the thing: I don’t believe that’s how love works. I believe in love as infinite, as a practice that I get better at with time, use and study. It’s not a finite resource that exists within me and depletes every time I give a bit away. After reflection and consideration, I think of love as a flow and exchange between the people I love and the people who love me, whether romantically or platonically. Loving one person intensely does not diminish my ability or theirs to love others intensely, in the past, present, or future. Love is something that can grow, ebb, and change over time.
Now, if only I could hold onto that belief when I’m actually trying to date people.
I remember very distinctly an instance my sophomore year of college, when my roommate asked me to do the 36 questions to fall in love activity from a psychology study detailed in The New York Times with her. At the time, she was in a very serious relationship, and I had never dated someone in my life. When we finished, she asked me why I didn’t date, and I answered: “I don’t want to build my schedule around someone else.” I’m fairly sure she answered with some variant of, “when you find the right person, you want to make space for them.” If it wasn’t her, it was several of the dozens of other people I gave that answer to.
And I already knew that, but how do you tell someone, well, actually what I’m really waiting for is my soulmate that I meet while on a fantastical adventure with whom I have a fractious relationship at first but come to admire, respect, and passionately love through our shared ordeals? You don’t because it sounds absolutely ridiculous even as I type it out here.
Perhaps the biggest problem in overcoming this desire is that I’ve actually had that feeling fulfilled by the key romantic relationships I’ve had in my life so my search for it feels validated. My first kiss was in a very intense, short-lived, adventurous relationship that felt almost forbidden-- by which I mean it happened in a stairwell at summer camp after curfew. I reunited with that same partner almost six years later in a single weekend of passion where words like “meant-to-be” and “how does it feel like this” were exchanged. Another formative relationship blossomed in a hotel room thousands of miles from where I’d admired this person for years without any hope of reciprocation. A third had me fighting to keep the person in my life for a full month, and finally triumphing against all odds.
Perhaps there were no fictional creatures, no magic, no prophecies or mortal danger, but the sense of fate drawing us together, of transcending probability through the strength of our bond has continued to both sate and whet my craving for world-altering love.
I think another contribution to fantasy soulmates being my formative idea of romantic relationships was the fact that my parents never talked about romantic relationships with me. To this day, they’ve never brought up the subject of my relationships unprompted. I’ve had three partners that I’ve told them about, and when I wanted to share that I was dating someone for the first time at 21, I had no clue how to start that conversation with my mom.
In many ways, I’m grateful that my parents put practically no emphasis on romantic and sexual relationships as I was growing up. It allowed me to focus on my own development and growth, pouring all of my energy into personal, professional, and artistic training and achievements. It means that I’ve never felt pressure to be in a relationship or date or have a partner to feel complete or happy, even in high school as I watched my friends get boyfriends and have sex for the first time. It means that I’ve never felt that a long-term relationship or marriage was something I needed to achieve by a certain age--or ever--lest I be branded a failure. I’ve never felt that my success or value in my parents’ eyes came from my ability to give them a relationship that would produce grandchildren for them. And I’m sure they would be overjoyed if at some point I did have a partner and children, but I also feel sure that they will not be disappointed if I never have those things, as long as I am happy with the path I’m on in life.
But that left me at the mercy of mythology and fantasy to learn about love. And in some ways, I’m grateful for that too: because I wanted that soul-changing connection I’d read about all my life, I waited for people that I felt truly and deeply connected with for experiences like my first kiss, my first time having sex, my first boyfriend. Of course, not all of the romantic and sexual liaisons I’ve had fit the bill, but the ones where I made myself the most vulnerable, where the most was on the line for me--those ones I made certain I would hold dear for my entire life, thanks to the teachings of YA novels.
But it also means that I won’t even try dating someone unless I feel that connection. And when I do it consumes me and makes it impossible to focus on anything else. I allow it to take me to the highest peaks of joy and the lowest valleys of despair. I become jealous and sensitive and demanding and needy. I open myself up to conflict between my partner and I because I grew up on stories of unexpected love overcoming betrayal, secrecy, and enmity. And I will do anything to keep the bond alive rather than let it go when it has run its course, because my beloved books taught me that you don’t give up on someone you love.
Looking back from age 24, I’m not sure it was a good first lesson to learn about love for a six year old girl. And although I recognize that my craving for drama and intensity in my relationships hasn’t led me to stable, lasting ones (although it has made for lots of good stories), I’m not sure how to let it go.
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Images submitted by Gabby Banas