Monday, February 8, 2016

My Top 5 Romance Pet Peeves

Hey all! It’s the week before February 14th, which means love is in the air, right? Unfortunately, hubby and I are both pretty bad at celebrating holidays, and Valentine’s Day tends to be the forgotten one of the bunch. But that doesn’t mean we can’t enjoy love.

Or love stories.

Recently, I’ve been on quite a Hallmark kick, which means I’ve been binging a lot of really bad romantic movies. Every time I watch one, I think about what I like, don’t like, so really… it’s research. The more I watch, the more trends I tend to see, and many of them irk me nonstop. Since we haven’t quite gotten to Valentine’s Day yet, I thought I’d list the top five annoying romance cliché’s I'm tired of.

1.       Instalove.

Seriously. I don’t know how else to say this. Whether it be by magic, or by true love or soul mates, for some reason, it’s acceptable to fall in love with someone, know you’re destined to be together forever (because said magic, soul mates, etc told you) and never really get to know the person. Hey, I’m all for love at first sight, and I’m not saying it doesn’t happen. But it doesn’t mean that you don’t have to get to know the person either. Everyone has a different background, different beliefs, and if you don’t talk about them, then your romance isn’t going to end up with that happily ever after.

2.       Lying.

This one irks me beyond belief. I know that during the third act, there needs to be something that keeps the lovers from being together, but when it’s a small matter of not communicating, it makes me want to scream. That’s what a good relationship is built on, communication. If you start lying to each other, no matter how ‘noble’ the reason, it’s still going to hurt the relationship. It’s one of the biggest reasons why I actually liked the movie version of Insurgent over the book version. They got rid of most of the lying and secret keeping between Four and Tris.

3.       Love for the sake of love.

I’m all for romance. Actually, I prefer having some sort of romance in a story, but to throw two characters together and tell the audience they’re in love because it moves the plot along doesn’t do it for me. Where’ the chemistry? There are so many stories where I honestly don’t understand why the characters are attracted to one another. Or why they want to be in a same room together. There’s no buildup, and it feels contrived. I’m looking at you, Black Widow and Hulk!

4.       Indecisiveness

This one kind of goes in with the love triangles. Obviously, we aren’t always aware of our feelings, but to be wishy washy for long periods of time makes me frustrated. Or leading someone on that you’re obviously not in love with because – drama! I think this is one of the reason why love triangles are so hated. Because they never last that long in real life. The reader, and the third character are going to feel cheated. Don’t drag it out for so long that your readers stop caring.

5.       The boring, no-good boyfriend.

Okay, where did this guy come from? For some reason, there are so many stories where the girl is stuck in a dead-end relationship with some guy who is either boring, doesn’t care about her interests and hobbies, or is too stuck in his own work to notice her. Of course, this leads to the main love interest to swoop in and save the day, showing her what real love is. How is it that it’s okay for a girl to settle for guys like this? Shouldn’t we be teaching younger girls not to settle? Maybe that’s what the romance is trying to tell us? Also, for some reason, it’s perfectly acceptable for the girl to choose the new guy. There was one movie in particular I’d been watching, where I was rooting for the boring guy to just dump her because she wasn’t being faithful to him, in any sense of the word.


So there you have it! My top five pet peeves with romance. What drives you insane? What trends do you wish would just stop?

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