How long…

…do you think you should pine for someone? My personal belief is no more than two weeks because lets face it if they were dumb enough to leave you or upset you then hell honey, they don’t deserve any more of your time. Even a week would work. Why? Because life is too damn short to deal with people who don’t understand you. So cry, scream, eat your weight in chocolate and drink too many margaritas and then move on. Basically – fuck ‘em – it’s their loss.

Why am I bringing this up? A couple of reasons, while working on the current book I have had to constantly stop writing and slap myself around the head when my heroine gets too caught up in being pissed off with her ex-lover. You know, I need the angst as a reason why there is no way she wants to deal with the hero but sometimes as I write madly away, the character starts getting too angst ridden for me. If it was real life and the heroine was a friend, I would want to slap her and tell her to get a grip. There’s a real fine line between the plot and oh-my-god-is-this-heroine-an-idiot-over-this-man-or-what? I’m trying very hard to keep her away from idiot status….fingers crossed.

The other reason? I have been talking to a friend who I can only equate to as being a soap opera character. Strange thing is it never hit me before that he was. But he is exactly like one of these characters who takes up with woman after woman and loves them all and ‘deeply cares’ about them then he loses them. Before all this happens, he does the whole ‘I’m listening to you’ thing very well – you know that’s the deal when he repeats back word for word what the woman said making her think he is very sensitive and in tune with her. This is followed by drama – the angst ridden sort you get in soap operas. Pining happens next when they’re no longer in his life – that is until he looks for and finds the next woman he has ‘tender feelings’ for. You know, on the whole I think he’s pretty harmless and maybe a little dopey.

What is it with soap opera-like men and women? They love in an emotionally exhausting manner which everyone else can see is doomed or dumb and yeah, I think most of them probably have the whole staring meaningfully out into the distance thing down pat. They’re not bad people – they’re just not rational and I believe they get hurt too often and confuse the rest of us in the process. Can I suggest if you find yourself staring meaningfully into the distance – stop it – life is not The Bold and the Beautiful.

Check out the commercial below…a classic soap opera man....reminds me of my friend...



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How long….

…can one realistically pine for another? How long do you wonder about an ex-lover? When do you stop thinking about them? Is there a time limit? Are you just supposed to be strong and cut ties and walk off and pretend someone never existed? Do you decide to hate them in lieu of being with them because it makes you feel better? Or do you compare every single person in your life with them? But how good were they if they walked out on you when you were so in love with them? Or do you think ‘fuck it, you don’t deserve me.’

Why the questions? Well mainly because I can…it’s my blog. But more importantly, I have been talking to another about people who come into your life who you love so deeply and cannot forget when they leave it. No, not people who die – I mean we all know how devastating that is. You know you’ll see them again when you yourself die, providing you go to Heaven or get a visitors day pass from hell. But this is more about the people who come into your life turn it outside down, take your heart and romance you until you can think of no one but them – then they leave, for whatever reason, and you sit and wonder what they’re doing, could you have done something better or maybe plot to get them back. Those people suck. No, really they do. No one should leave another to feel like that. And no, that’s never happened to me. I don’t pine.

The current book I am writing has an element of that in it - and other stuff…I won’t say much more as we writers do ‘inadvertently’ nick another writer’s stuff ‘unintentionally’ of course.…but talking to this person really hit home to me how easily we wound each other when it comes to love and how long some of these wounds take to heal. And as I pointed out to him that if it was really meant to be and if you really loved each other and if you had any meaning in her life then she wouldn’t have left so why beat yourself up over the scrag…I mean woman? Why do we do that to ourselves? Why do we think we’re to blame? Is the need to be loved so important that once we have it, although everything may not be perfect or great, we hold onto it so tight for fear of losing it that we fail to see what we have is actually pretty average?

You know romance writers write the fantasy of love but rarely ever do we show cold hard you-ripped-my-heart-out-of-my-chest-and-drop-kicked-it- into-a-wall-then-made-me-wonder-what-the-hell-I-did-wrong-and-why- the-hell-am-I-sitting-and-thinking-about-you-as-I-stare-at-your-picture-on-my-cell-phone? And let’s face it no one really wants to read a romance book where the heroine or hero sits on the hood of his car, staring out to sea, raw, ravaged and pining for what could have been the whole book. We want to know that maybe they did have a fight but they will get together. That doesn’t help a great deal when someone is pining does it? That’s not life as we know it, Jim.

If you are pining for someone who walked in – shook your world up and then walked out without a backward glance – stop it - stuff ‘em – you're worth more.

www.amarindajones.com
www.amarindajones.blogspot.com
Go Ahead : Live with abandon. Be outrageous at any age. What are you saving your best self for?