Why Romance?

For years, I thought being taken seriously as a writer meant writing literary non-fiction. It meant, a certain kind of personal essay that gave depth and meaning to an intimate moment by connecting it to more expansive social themes. Don’t get me wrong, I still love reading those pieces. Sometimes I’ll come across an essay that I read repeatedly amazed at the style, structure, and depth of meaning. I love it.

Why else would I decide to launch a blog while also writing my first novel? But for me it took, discovering that I was neurodivergent to finally begin to discover my voice as a writer.

I used to write for others, to prove my worth. But now I write for myself. Because I have something to say.

Even if I discover that my readership is exactly seven really cool encouraging people who enjoy my writing, I’m okay with that. I just want to write about what I love and there are a few things I love more than a good romance novel.

But why romance?

This is the question I get all the time when I tell people about my blog or about the novel I started writing back in January.

What the smart serious people think about romance: predictable, formulaic, unrealistic portrayals of relationships, escapist fiction.

Okay, all true ­—depending on the author and subgenre—but I still don’t see the problem. Those are actually some of the things I love about it. My brain is in a constant state of hyperawareness, often taking in more sensory stimuli or information than I can process. It's just the nature of being an audhder. To live my life well means constantly swinging between being understimulated or overstimulated and then seeking out the practices and tools that help me to recover.

 For as long as I can remember, reading has been part of that process of recovery. On really tough days, when I’m just fully burnt out, recovery looks like closing the window shades, laying under my weighted blanket, and reading for 12-13 hours straight often only moving to use the bathroom or eat a snack. My genre of choice has always been romance. It stimulates my neurodivergent brain in the best possible way.

So why do I love romance? It comes down to three key elements.

Clear Structure

I used to watch hours of Hallmark channel movies. I love that the structure is so consistent. When I turn on a Hallmark channel movie, I know exactly what’s going to happen in the first 15-minutes, at the 45-minutes mark, and even at the one-hour and 59-minute mark. In a world that feels constantly overwhelming that level of predictability allows me to relax and truly be entertained by what I’m watching. The same is true with a good romance novel, The genre is known for its four-act structure, universal tropes, and the inner and outer conflicts that repeat again and again across each book. Of course, authors get creative and find ways to put their own spin on these common elements, but they remain loyal to the genre by sticking to the things that faithful readers know and love.

Predictability is Grounding

Life is full of unavoidable twists and turns, so I have to find ways to deal with the unexpected every day without losing my shit. On a good day, I can manage it well other times I’m screaming inside and desperate to run away and hide to give myself time to adjust my expectations and adapt to the new reality. But when I’m reading a romance novel, there is one thing I know for sure and that is that each character will find a way to overcome the internal belief that prevents them from believing they deserve love and get their happily ever after. I don’t need my own life to be as nice and neat (although that would be great if it was) if I know that I can escape into a book where the characters I’ve become invested in get what they want in the end.

Desire to understand relationships

Relationships are complicated. I struggled my whole life with this. I remember meeting with my doctor at the end of the diagnosis process and we talked about the kinds of challenges I had with intimate relationships. She let me know that what I had experienced was common amongst autistic women but later in life (post-diagnosis) we report having healthier relationships. I certainly hope that’s true. Unfortunately, too many autistic adult women, myself included experience higher rates of physical, mental, and emotional violence, manipulation, and exploitation in our intimate relationships. All my relationships in my 20-30s were like this. By the time I hit my later 30s I had all but given up trying to date anymore. Learning that I was neurodivergent put so much into perspective and helped me understand what I needed in a partnership. I’ve learned so much about relationships and sex from reading romance. People might say that the representations in the genre are unrealistic and some of them are (but who cares! It’s fantasy) but there are books that have helped me understand my own sexuality, ask questions about what I like and deserve from a partner, and opened me up to the possibility that I too could one day have a healthy supportive loving partnership. For that, I will always be grateful to the authors who write romance.

So that’s why I read and write romance. It’s predictable, filled with most formulaic tropes (give me all the forced proximity, grumpy-sunshine, enemies-to-lovers storylines, please!), and allows me time to escape from the constant pendulum pull of over/under-stimulation that is my daily reality. But most of all it reminds me that we all deserve our own version of a happily ever after.