For some reason, all of my classmates (apart from a select few) seem to think that romance is currency. Hugs and kisses are tossed this way and that and declarations of true love are written on the backs of crumpled assignments. And if people aren't already deeply and madly in love, they're jumping into any and all relationships, desperate for some kind of commitment. I must admit that even I long for some kind of boyfriend or girlfriend, though I'm not grasping at straws to get one.
It became clear to me the other day when I was reading a novel, actually, built for teens my age. The protagonist is a bit of a Mary Sue, really, and by the second book she's had two boyfriends (a human and a vampire fledgling) and she's lost her v-card to a vampire professor. She falls in love in a matter of minutes and decides that yet another boy is her soul mate after knowing him for all of a couple hours. It's ridiculous.
Of course, while reading this addicting paper soap opera, I couldn't help but compare it to my own writing. In the novel that I'm writing, the protagonist does not simply fall in and out of love with multiple people. Having a young and ignorant mind, she lets herself be seduced in the beginning, but she understands that she does not love him. Her real mate is introduced later on, but romance comes slowly, building up as the book progresses.
Which brings me back to my earlier topic: my classmates. They seem to think along the lines of the other author I was speaking of, that love is something they can just manifest out of thin air where and when they happen to feel like it. They don't understand that romance is not something tangible, not something that can just be bought at the local supermarket or the corner liquor store. Love is like a house—it takes a long time to build.
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