“I used to be like you,” said my friend Louise, with the involuntary condescension common to happily married couples everywhere.  “Then I fell in love, and my heart got squishy.”

“Louise,” I replied, turning to her, “I only just barely stopped myself from pushing you down the stairs.  Don’t even!”

Louise laughed and thanked me for not pushing her down the stairs (she works next to me, so is used to the rage).  I think I was partially suffering from end-of-the-week exhaustion, but my goodness was it a trial of a week even without people preaching the virtues of romance.  Eugh, it’s like everybody suddenly realised that it was Valentine’s Day and they were single, and I have been inundated.  Phone; email; facebook; people on the street.  Thank goodness that’s over—and other than somehow agreeing to go out a couple of times in the next few weeks (and why? why?!!), I escaped unscathed.  I’m leaving the country again in 10 months; I’m not going to waste anyone’s time.

Romance is something I have been thinking about a lot for the last few months (eg here), partly because it’s something that as a traveller, I don’t get to play with much; and partly because of my book.  My novel is an absurdist fairytale, which gets more and more satirical as I redraft it—but fairytales are supposed to have happy endings, and everybody’s supposed to fall in love.  However, that’s so very different to real life, and I like to write the truth as much as I can, even if it’s in a very silly way.  What’s more, everything the rest of the world seems to find romantic seems like destructive bullshit to me.  I mean, 50 Shades of Grey?  Abuse!  (As opposed to a trusting bdsm relationship.  Also, for the best book review ever, see here—I actually couldn’t bring myself to read Twilight fan fic mommy porn, so read Katrina’s review instead).  On the topic of Twilight, how is a really, really old guy stalking, harassing and obsessing over  a teenager romantic?  And how is all the angst?  Eugh, and speaking of angst, why does every chic flick ever either (a) promote battle of the sexes bullshit (this isn’t a freaking war, people!) or (b) have miscommunication as the entire premise of the movie?  Oh, you didn’t say what you meant, and then you cried about it, and then you said it after all but it was too late, and then you went and tried to get over it while silently moping, and then finally your life was vindicated when the other party ‘fessed up and now everything’s all hunky freaking dory?  How is that something to aspire to?!?!  And then there’s the freaking books.  I read about fifty romance books last year trying to get a feel for writing in that style, and it was all so annoying.  God, it’s like every single one had some difficult love triangle (I don’t understand how you could be in love with two people at the same time), or some man in need of reforming (how about you just don’t date douchebags—hypocrisy accepted), or just lots of sex scenes which the protagonist inevitably views as romantic, even when they’re blatantly not (how about you come to terms with your sexuality, and don’t need to justify or confuse it with love?).

Google has let me down, but I once read something by John Cleese which pointed out that there’s very little difference between the prescriptions of romanticism and the symptoms of clinical depression.  It was funnier when he said it, but.  So do I think romance is dead/fiddy-faddy/whatever?  No, not at all.  In writing the book, I couldn’t figure out whether I was desperately cynical, or desperately romantic—and I really feel like they should be opposites.  I think I’m going to make a table.  Yup, it’s table time.

Stoopid culture.

The other thing that really bothers me is summed up pretty nicely in this quote from the only gossip page worth reading (so hilariously harsh, it’s irresistible):

[W]hile they’re hot, the majority of non-famous chicks think they’ll be hot forever, so they date and bang bar owners, DJs, club promoters, tattoo artists, and musicians. Then when they hit 28, they’ll marry the first dude who calls them back the morning. That’s usually Harold in accounting with the 2004 Chrysler Seabreeze because he’s gone more than a year without his power being disconnected.

It can’t be just me who sees this every day, right?  People (usually ones who don’t know me very well) tell me that I should just ‘choose someone’, and as long as they’re nice to me, who cares?  Well, me.  Because as one of my favourite blog entries ever so eloquently put it, sometimes people are an ellipsis and not a period.  The rest of my life is like a book, why can’t this be, too?  And if I can’t have the Big Love, if I can’t be with someone who’s as hungry for worlds and places as I am, who I can truly love and trust, then why would I choose an unsettling mediocrity over the life I have now?  It’s incomprehensible.

And now, because it seems timely and appropriate and super Russian, here’s my (quick and dirty) translation of Edward Asadov’s poem “Never Give Up on Love” (Эдуард Асадов, “Не привыкайте никогда к любви”).  Corrections are of course welcome.  Also note that I translated “не привыкайте” variously as ‘never give up’ and ‘never get used to’.  As usual I went for idiomatic rather than literal translation, like with Я Вас Любил (Пушкина, конечно!) a while back.  And yes, there’s one sentence which I just had no idea how to translate.  You’ll see it.