Romance: Life vs Literature

While many of us have learned that romance REQUIRES conflict, (you can't have a love story without problems: forbidden liasons, misunderstandings, danger, separation, etc.) the majority of us stubbornly cling to the hope that there is a kind of love that transcends this fantasy. We do our best to believe in a real, practical love of the adult world that keeps on sizzling even though it’s without problems. Stories need conflicts, real life relationships need stability. The perfect man is single; your families aren’t feuding; you aren’t dangerously younger and he isn’t a priest; yet magically, with the right person, your heart flutters and the two of you share hollywood kisses, perfect sex, and a lasting relationship. ..right?

As I’m writing this I can’t help but smile at how increasingly unlikely it sounds. As I’ve said before I’ve experienced a sincerely good kind of love, the kind that I’m shooting for in future relationships, twice in my life. Both instances started out with platonic friendships which slowly grew into honest admiration, and, eventually, a delicious elation that comes from a heart FULL of an irristable drug that pumps your veins with a hit of blissful exhiliration with every beat. Wow!

BUT. There's a catch. I’ve been pushing it aside as an unimportant detail, since I’m so persuaded that the above feeling had nothing to do with it, but for the sake of discussion here it is: in both cases neither man was single. Hmmmmmmmmm..

The more recent was Harry, and the more dangerous was a forbidden professor. Last year, while in a committed relationship of my own, I fell and fell HARD for a man 20 years my senior, happily married, and professionally off limits.. but, he made me laugh. The affair escalated to passionate Thorn Birds style make outs on office desks with lights turned out and shades drawn. Fortunately the whole thing was extinugished when I left the country for my future in France, but to this day I think of him often and in the highest esteem as one of the only men I’ve ever truly loved.

Do calm seas a happy relationship make? Can we really find that kind of love that makes us “ooh” and “aah” without any bumps in the road? Let's be honest: love in the "real world," can we ditch the fiction and still keep the romance?