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Nobody. That’s who.
Most days I feel like a fraud, sitting behind this microphone in my basement, and signing on as the host of my podcast, The Hopeful Romantic. Listeners write in via email, and I choose a few questions to answer each week.
There are days when I ask myself what business I have telling anyone how to make a relationship work, considering my track record. But the truth is, I’m good at solving these quandaries. For some unknown reason, when presented with a question about what is going wrong between two people, I seem to come upon the answers easily.
I credit my deep love of romance novels for this superhuman ability. I’ve been swiping them off of my mom’s shelf since I was nine years old.
Not all of them were exactly age-appropriate, which is another line-item up for discussion with my therapist.
The downside is that those same novels ruined me for the real thing.
Fictional men are always better than the real ones.
Always.
Probably because they’re written by women.
For instance, take a young twenty-something who pines after her hot neighbor then finds out he’s a long-lost descendant of some Latvian monarchy but he doesn’t want to inherit his kingdom and be forced to marry some tart to bridge the divide between two warring nations, but instead forgoes wealth, realm, and rank to knock on his neighbor’s door and confess his love?
Only to find out he’s still rich by default and whisks her away to their new castle?
And call it The Earl Next Door?! Take my money.
And maybe it’s not realistic, but this kind of sweep me off my feet romance is what I’m waiting for. I won’t settle. I learned a long time ago that there’s no sense in giving my heart away. I’m waiting for the guy who will convince me to take a risk on him, and that guy is only going to convince me with grand romantic gestures.
The podcast started as a fun experiment. I had a knack for solving the problems of my lovelorn friends—and a few strangers who overshared at my bookstore—and I decided to conduct a little experiment.
What if my advice could help?
In the early days, I made up the questions myself. I’d write a question that seemed like something a person in a legitimate relationship might ask, and then, I’d provide the answer.
How was I supposed to know that people would actually start listening to The Hopeful Romantic? That this silly little idea I had would turn into something that led to advertising deals and provided me with the money to give my bookshop the facelift it deserved?
I couldn’t have predicted the way people would grab onto it. Somehow though, The Hopeful Romantic hasn’t seeped into my real life. Around the people of Harvest Hollow, it’s like the podcast doesn’t even exist. And that’s just how I want it. Because the second I’m found out is the second I become a laughingstock and the podcast goes up in flames. After all, I haven’t exactly had success when it comes to romance.
Sure, there have been boyfriends. They just don’t seem to stick around. Or more to the point, I seem to push them away. I know what I’m waiting for, and I won’t settle.
I want Mr. Darcy clenching his hand after helping Elizabeth into the carriage. Or Ryan Reynolds bursting into my workplace to profess his love for me after faking our engagement. Or Harry telling Sally that he wants the rest of their lives to start as soon as possible.
Holding out for that is the only way to keep myself from getting hurt. Because being the one who loves first or who loves more is not going to happen again. I learned that lesson the hard way.
It’s Podcast Thursday, which means it’s also Pajama Thursday.
I splurged and decided to try one of those mud masks because I noticed two parallel lines forming in that space at the top of my nose, right between my eyebrows.
So far, all it’s doing is making it difficult to make any kind of facial expressions.
Which, in turn, is making it difficult to talk into the mic and not sound like an emotionless robot.
I’m halfway through recording and seriously contemplating pausing to peel my face when I smell something strange.
Smoke.
Harvest Hollow has a no burning ordinance, and since I’m a stickler for the rules, I’m instantly on alert. Which of my neighbors is breaking the rules again? Can’t we have one nice day where someone isn’t burning leaves? Last weekend, my neighbor was burning a pile of treated wood, releasing chemicals into the air for all of us to breathe.
The distraction is enough to make me forget what I’m talking about. I make a note of the time, which I’ll send to my editor (a guy I found online named Ripper who I’ve never met but I’ve concocted a whole romantic backstory for him anyway). Usually, I turn in a pretty clean recording, but between the face mask and the smoke, poor Ripper is going to earn his money on this episode.
Thankfully, it will help with the impending experimental surgery for his estranged son he just recently reunited with.
