Men are different from women. Okay, I doubt anyone would argue that point. One look under the covers would confirm it pretty fast. However, men are vastly different from women in much more than an anatomical sense. While some men are the can crusher type, and others the three piece suit type, and everywhere in between they simply do not think like women. Still, in many novels, especially romance novels -- even professionally published ones -- it would seem as if since most writers are women we attempt to make them rationalize everything from raviolli to relationships the same way women do. We make our 'men' very feminine.
Maybe it's because it is the way we'd 'like' the men in our lives to be. It is simply not realistic. I've gotten more and more aware of this phenomenon lately and am starting to feel uncomfortable with it. I've seen it in books I've read and in my own work as well. What's wrong with a man being simply a man? The hard part of changing such a common thing is writers actually trying to understand how and why men think and act the way they do. Maybe there wouldn't even be a romance story if we actually did accomplish this trick. Sometimes I wonder how we manage to develop relationships in real life considering the difference. Then I think about the basic of most relationship (at least at the start) and I realize that the romance industry would probably become even more closely tied to erotica if we did manage to convey the realistic side of relationships and have men acting just like men.
It kind of brings to mind the one-liner from the 'Good Luck Chuck' trailer where Chuck asks his friend 'what is sex without love?' and his friend replies...'it's still sex!'
Not much to build a romance plotline on. I guess we'll forever be glued to novels where men think like women.
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