I was talking with a young teen recently about her deep, passionate love for all five of the members of the boy band One Direction. She was making up a story, she said, based on one of the boys. Apparently he is in love with another famous singer, but he dies, and she has to carry on. She forces herself to perform despite her pain, and one night at a concert, she sees his ghost.
Teen girls throughout the ages swoon.
It got me thinking. I never went in for celebrity crushes, but I certainly had a sizable roster of imaginary boyfriends, mostly from the stories I wrote. They were all good-looking, considerate, and witty. Oh, and alive.
Love stories that involve death simply don't thrill me. I don't listen to sad songs, I don't read sad stories. When a friend told me that she thought it was tragic and romantic to fling herself off a cliff into the ocean for the sake of lost love, I laughed.When I read about a girl caught in a love triangle between an undead vampire and a virile werewolf, I thought, "Honey, go for the warm body!" When it comes to tragic love, I'm all Elinor Dashwood, not Marianne.
I don't mean to say I didn't have laughable ideas about romance. I was into the idea of understated romantic tension. Lifelong love and passion? Absolutely! But I preferred my heroes to declare themselves with a grin and an offhand comment rather than an impassioned monologue in a rainstorm. I took the idea to the point that, at about age nineteen, I thought it would be the essence of understated passion for me to exchange vows with a man who would then kiss my hand. Four years later, when my father-in-law pronounced us man and wife, Darren had already informed me that he was not settling for my fingers.
All this to say... I'm not really sure what. Just that romances that involve death or ghosts don't make me puddle up into beautiful, satisfied tears. If he's going to kiss her hand, she had darn well better be able to feel it.
-- SJ
Monday, December 10, 2012
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5 comments:
"I laughed." Bwahahahaha!
I'm a total Mrs. Dashwood with an Elinor, a Marianne, and another Elinor growing up.
Mollie Griffith
I had a crush on Michael W Smith when I was 5. When I found out he was married I took it very matter-of-factly, and basically swore off crushes for life. It sorta worked. I definitely skipped out on celebrity crushes, and I couldn't agree with you more about not getting the teary-cliff-jumping-deathy romances.
Oh--and since you asked for the link on Friday, here is my blog www.theravenslanding.com
I never was into celebrity crushes either. During those teen years I was weird and reading missionary stories wanting to be single for life and wanting to daring adventurous things in other parts of the world. I had no time for men (sniff). However, I do enjoy a good tragic love story, movie, or song. Hence my love for the music of The Civil Wars and Kate Morton novels. :)
"wanting to do daring adventurous things . . . " that is.
Only celebrity crushes I had were: Jonathan Brandis (age-appropriate), and Scott Hamilton. Not that I would have admitted them to my friends since I tended to mock their rampant crushes. (I learned hypocrisy at a young age).
I am both Elinor and Marianne, but never at the same time. And they are constantly at odds with each other, my subdued, cerebral side trying to wrestle down the passionate, bohemiam half.
So depending on the mood, I might read Jane Eyre or Northanger Abbey, but never Wuthering Heights.
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