Guilty Pleasures

Everyone has guilty pleasures, whether its those stupid reality tv shows or silly vampire novels; we all like to indulge in something a little lame every now and then. My guilty pleasure is reading raunchy poorly written romance novels. I know many people think I'm a hard ass and don't have a romantic bone in my body but I've been a sucker for happy endings for as long as I can remember. Chick flicks and romantic comedies are my everything and corny pick up lines or cheesy dates and ideas are what I live for. It's not a secret that I have completely taken myself out of the dating world. I used to fall for people so easily and I would have these butterflies and just this idea in my mind that everything would work out in the end because I'm the main character of my own romance film. I'm the damsel in distress, the quirky little sally, or the girl that ends up with her best friend. I've always been into reading and have probably read every young adult romantic novel there was in my library back in California. I turned pages that covered the nerdy hunk whose secretly really deep or the bad boy with piercings who has the soft sultry eyes, I've fallen for the boy with all the baggage and the vampire whose changed his ways. For as long as I can remember, I've wanted a storybook love. Heck, I still sing to myself Grease songs every June waiting for my summer lovin. Then how could someone so obsessed with love be set on never finding it, you ask. 

I had heart ache, I had love triangles, I played mind games and I saw challenges in people not things. I always put my whole heart into relationships and when they ended, I was crushed but also always ready for a new game to play. I grew up watching my brother be a player, flirt with others when his girlfriend wasn't around. I fell for the bad boys, the good ones were too boring for me and I always believed that I could change them. I could make the player stop playing the game. I could turn him into prince charming, my prince charming because well, that's how it always happened in my books, that's how it always ended in the movies. Why should it be any different in real life? The cliche thing to ask would be so who ruined you? Who broke my heart and showed me that love only fits on bookshelves or dvds? I think I just learned what love really is. Love is something that doesn't last, it's those moments where you feel completely and entirely overwhelmed with someone. It's where you feel that someone somewhere wants you alive more than your heart and your veins push to keep living. It's the definition of happiness defined with a wordless minute. So, it's exactly how the movies and books make it out to be, this out of world experience that changes everything. 

Love is feeling so strongly about someone that you're willing to let them go. You're willing to give away your air so they can keep breathing. I realised that those moments of happiness are like a drug and once they're gone your life is withdrawal. It's never the same once the real thing is over. I know I sound like this cliche spilling silly little words and defining things we've all heard a million times but I don't ever want to feel love again. The thought itself makes my stomach twist and turn and the mere idea of being so completely enthralled in another human being leaves me never wanting to leave my bed again. I sound like a bitter old lady with 30 cats but in all honesty, I am perfectly fine. I'm not bitter, I'm simply realistic. It's been a year and a half almost since I felt it, since it left and all my storybook characters can't even compare to what I had. But that's the thing, it's past tense. Love is only brief and not ever lasting. It has an expiration date and I've come to realise that it is so much better to never have loved at all. I genuinely think the person who wrote, 'It is better to have loved and lost then to never have loved at all' was smoking serious crack. I was a functioning human being before I experienced love, I was a naive zombie like everyone else who saw purpose in roses and shed tears when ships sank. I don't feel any of that anymore. I look at people and nothing but the reminder of loss hits me. 

So, every now and again when I find myself missing the tufts of flirting or the bugs in my belly that cared, I immerse myself in a sappy romance novel and relive my glory days. I still smile at the corny pick up lines, I aw at the first kiss, I envy the lines of every page and the end always makes me cry. But every ending is a reminder that everything must end and I breathe back into the content life I have built myself. Those Guilty Pleasures get the best of us, let us swoon and enjoy something completely ridiculous but we need them. I really miss the girl who used to want a Danny Zuko or a Duckie for my Pretty in Pink. The movies will always be the same but the reality we live in will never stop changing, for those of you out there still looking for love, a cuddle, a romantic fuck and someone to call yours I genuinely wish you never stop. Prove me wrong and feel it everyday, feel love the way it's written in storybooks and raunchy novels. Feel the kisses that tie tongues and never stray. 

I'll just keep reading my sappy romance novels every rainy day. 

Stefanie