No more Cupids please...

This weekend I read an incredibly depressing book. As I have mentioned, and I’m sure you’ve realised, my favourite genre (in all media) is SciFi and fantasy. But, every now and then, I break the pattern and read something else, either a crime or thriller by someone like Lee Child, or an occasional romance novel. I try to avoid the romance novels because of experiences like the one I’m about to relate.

The title was “Aphrodite’s Workshop for Reluctant Lovers”, and I thought: “oh goody, some supernatural spin to an otherwise pretty monotonous genre”. The prose is pretty good: witty and erudite interspersed with biting sarcasm and a healthy dose of cynicism. Or so I thought. As the book progressed, I realised that the cynicism went quite deep.

The plot concerns a romance novelist who, having had a failed marriage and disastrous romantic affairs, has lost faith in long-term love and marriage and essentially the entire realm from which she makes her living. Aphrodite’s position as goddess of love and romance (blah blah blah) is being undermined by the high divorce rates and meaningless relationships of today, and so she attempts to ensure that her “disciple” the writer regains her faith in order to continue to propagate the cult of romance.

Normally, these frothy novels encourage me to believe in love and romance and marriage and happily ever after, etc etc etc; but this time the underlying disillusionment just made the whole thing draining. I came away at the end of the book with the feeling that, although the protagonist had met the man she was meant to be with and this relationship would be different, the author does not believe what she is writing. There is an irony to her tone that says that this marriage is going to end, just like all the others in the book. The only thing that I find credible is her belief that in order to love “until death do us part”, one of the partners should die young.

All in all, I am now considering spending the rest of my life in blissfully selfish solitude with my cat.

It didn’t help at all that on Saturday morning I was walking through my local shopping centre and passed a restaurant, the only shop open at the unearthly hour of 8:30 am. As the restaurant has a jungle gym and play area attached, the tables were filled with families “enjoying” their monthly outing. All the expressions were the same: the fathers all looked exasperated and the mothers all looked exhausted. The kids were unruly and demanding and hyped up on waffles and ice-cream, and I just looked at all this and thought “is this really what I’m waiting for?” The fact is, I’m pretty content the way I am, being responsible for no one but myself. I know how that sounds, but I don’t want to make someone else unhappy as well.

This is probably just a phase but, right now, I’m flying solo. And loving it!