5 Romantic Cliches To Beat Off With Pepper Spray

Yeah, I know I've talked about romantic cliches before, but not in this series! (This heavily-spread-out series that I never seem to be done with, anyway) Some of the ones in this post are ones that are harmful, and others are ones I'm just sick of. So let's get into it!

1. Abusive relationships.
I can't talk about this enough. Abuse is not romantic, is not funny, is not okay. If someone's getting beat up, whether it's physically or emotionally, the relationship should either be over or head straight to counseling.

2. They're clearly not in love, don't even like each other, but the writer puts them together.
I've been noticing this a lot anymore. If one of the characters in the relationship is meant to end up with a different character, the relationship they're in seems. . . strained, to put it nicely. The two of them always seem like they're not in love, not in like, not even friends. They just kiss or live together or something until we can contrive some situation to get them separated and together with their intended people.

3. Cheating.
Yes, it's not exactly like most societies condone cheating on the person you're with, but really. In some books I've read, one of the characters will be unhappy with their relationship and go to someone else. Not on purpose, but they gravitate to the other person, and the problem is, it's not even shown as cheating. It's just meant to look romantic. But it's still cheating. You're spending romantic time with someone other than your boyfriend/girlfriend, and that's not the way it's supposed to work.

4. Minimal secret-keeping happens, immediately causes a massive rift.
Again, secret-keeping obviously isn't a healthy thing to maintain in a relationship, but in this case, it seems ridiculously over-dramatized. The way some YA goes anymore, it seems like you can't buy a jar of pickles without telling your boyfriend. It's kind of crazy. And here's the other thing: I feel like if your boyfriend/girlfriend was keeping a secret from you, but finally found the courage to tell you, you shouldn't blow up in their face. Maybe the secret was indeed something terrible, but it was clearly very hard for them to tell you, so why would you blow up in their face like that?

5. Labeling the feeling as 'love' too quickly.
This is a big thing anymore. Here I thought society knew the difference between love and a crush, but here we are. Characters are deciding they're 'in love' right and left, and naming a lot of things as 'love' much too quickly. It takes time to tell whether someone is right for you, and then after that you have to be able to tell whether you like them(a feeling that will fade with time), or whether you love them(a feeling that doesn't fade). Love is a precious word, and it should be kept safe until you're absolutely certain.


All right, thus ends my rant for today! Sorry if my posts lately have been short, but I'm feeling kind of creatively burned out lately. Maybe I need a break. I'm not sure yet. Well, see you on Thursday for another post!

See ya!