Romance Fiction Is the Closest I’ll Ever Get to Love

I don’t remember my first romance novel, but I recall my introduction being subtle enough to make whispers sound like firecrackers. My protagonists shifted from silly and adventurous to observant and flirtatious. They noticed the way hair brushed over a delicate shoulder, the effortless movement igniting electrical storms in their chest. How their hearts raced with an innocent wave, a passing smile, a meeting of the eyes. My heart raced with them.

Fascination and curiosity consumed me like a siren’s song. On hot summer days, when the pavement was too warm to play on, I scoured the young adult section of my local library, feeling drunk and thirsty for anything with love in its plot. Pulling random paperbacks with fraying edges off the shelves, I incessantly flipped through pages, hunting for scenes with subtle touches and passionate kisses. When I found them, I skipped to the counter, anxious to let the author guide me on a thrill I’d yet to live.

At the time, boys evolved beyond uninteresting counterparts I sat next to while memorizing the nation’s capitals; a shift that, naturally, fed my curiosity. I wondered if the sweep of my classmates’ hair would light fires in my chest or make my palms sweat. Secretly, I hoped I sparked the same in them.

I got older, and my characters became bolder. Stolen glances and awkward pecks morphed into forbidden and hidden touches in places I’d only recently noticed. These stories grew hotter with every page, and somewhere between me and the words, my curiosity metamorphosed into longing. According to these made-up people, to be wanted and loved was to climb a mountain and jump, letting the wind catch you and bring you back to land with a pillow-soft touch. To be carried was to be beautiful. How could I not want to be beautiful?

Moments like these fed my excitement as I daydreamed of how my time would manifest, especially as friends engaged in euphoric moments of their own. Beneath warm summer moons, I huddled with girlfriends in hushed conversations as they confessed to exhilarating, affectionate experiences and how it felt to be desired. They shared their first dates, shy kisses, late-night text conversations, and all the things that they’d probably cringe at now. The things I was anxious to experience and share, too.

With each story, something in me cracked.

Those dates, kisses, and texts never found me.

The wind refused to catch me.

Each passing year exacerbated the too-deep hole in my chest. Dates, kisses, and touches remained foreign. I turned heads like south magnets attracting south magnets. My messages were filled with outlandish internet memes while words of affection and interest evaded me. I didn’t dream of fairy tales, but I didn’t anticipate being excluded from a fundamental human experience. Why was I chosen to be overlooked? What about me made Cupid shake her head in shame?

Reassurances from loved ones were tossed at me like a live-broadcast Oprah giveaway. They suggested my issue was caused by timing, location, and lack of clarity around my own desires and expectations. Promises that I wasn’t missing much usually followed, along with affirmations that what I longed for wasn’t all sunshine and rainbows—a truth I already knew.

Despite the grandiosity of the books I read, my feet were planted firmly in reality. I witnessed friends whiplash into relationships and fall out of them even faster. Find and choose their forever person, then choose another. They’d fight, make up, and repeat the cycle twelve more times. I watched peers wade through dark, sticky messes that left tar on their hearts.

I questioned: did I really want a love journey?

It’s possible I’d open the door, take a look, and walk right out because heartbreak wasn’t worth it. That would’ve been fine. Welcomed, even. Because it would have been my decision. I could say I tasted one of life’s foundational hungers and soured at its flavor rather than choking on a seemingly random, targeted cosmic punishment.

But, no.

Instead, hopelessness rears her head, her hand outstretched to receive my resignation letter. Jealousy melts into devastation and disappointment, turning into a second skin I can’t shed. Romance fiction becomes home to my imagination and grief. I've surrendered to being an invisible third wheel on curated romantic journeys of characters flawed in the right ways. I’ve embraced my role as an unknown voyeur siphoning the imagery and metaphors of meet-cutes to feed my imagination. Every so often, I’ll self-insert into the narrative when the sadness grows too heavy to carry. I’ll read these novels even if it feels like drinking water through a straw with a hole in its middle while in the desert.

This is the closest I’ve been to love.

And the closest I’ll ever get.