The fantasy of romances and friendships.

People love to have a fairytale story in their lives. They love to be rich and wealthy, have a mansion full of servants, and have a beautiful partner and a circle of reliable friends. It is not a shame to imagine and wish for good things but going completely off the rails by being delusional?

Now that’s an issue.

Ever heard of spouses ruining families to get their hands on the ancestral wealth? Did you pay close attention to who was your truest friend when you were in despair? Did you listen to stories of people getting cursed with misfortunes because someone couldn’t handle their success?

The internet shows its audience a lot of fantasies about love and friendship. It also shows its exceptions in the spotlight but we still love to wallow in our imagination about how cool would it be to marry someone rich, handsome and completely stable. Certain novels often gain recognition for their well-written side-characters or for the realistic way they handled the plot. Fantasy is good and all but too much of a good thing is definitely too bad. Although ‘Romeo and Juliet’ taught the audience of 1597 about pure and sacrificial love, the 21^st century ended up romanticizing about wanting a ‘Romeo’ who would fall in love with them in the blink of an eye (bro forgot Rosaline as if he hadn’t been sobbing over her for the past few Acts) or a ‘Juliet’ who would follow you and love you no matter what (even if you are from the enemy family).

Romance books also have certain tropes for their characters like the shy and nerdy male lead who wears glasses and is always buried in books and the outgoing, bubbly and insanely popular female lead who somehow crosses paths with him. Or the reverse scenario in which the cold and serious heir of a famous organization meets a commoner girl who is cheerful and humorous. The typical ‘high-school sweethearts’ or the ‘co-workers’.  The friends of both the leads are always their polar opposites again. The dead serious introverted friend with the extremely extroverted social butterflies or the mutually chaotic best friends where one is genuinely afraid of the consequences and the other just barges in with guns blazing. It is indeed enjoyable to read but reality is so cruel sometimes that you would want nothing more than to keep your wishful thinking in check.  Here are three tropes that must never be romanticized or made fun of in reality since many fan-girls and fan-boys forget the line between the real world and the book world. 

•The ‘daddy issues’ trope:  it is a commonly used term for the lead when they have an abusive father who is the reason for their erratic and sensitive behavior. This trope especially gets all the girls thinking that “they can fix him” when they see a guy with issues like that. Hate to break it to you, but dysfunctional families are hard to heal. The consequences caused by an inattentive and abusive father are harsh and not at all easily healed. People like these are harsh and feel hard to deal with but it really isn’t their fault that they came out like that. A popular cartoon character from the Avatar series named Zuko is a part of this trope. In the beginning, he comes off as unbearably evil and desperate to please his abusive father. The only one who actually saw through his sensitivity and hurt was his uncle Iroh and his girlfriend Mai. To be a Mai for a guy like Zuko isn’t romantic. It is a hard path where you should be constantly aware of the trigger points of your partner or even friend. Don’t commit yourself to people like these if you want the full ‘romance novel’ experience because you are only hurting them more. It goes to show just how shallow you are. Don’t try to fix something that you obviously can’t.

 

• The “suddenly looking drop-dead gorgeous when they remove their glasses” trope: people do look different sometimes when they remove their glasses but this trope manages to give the glasses community extra insecurity with the way it is used. It isn’t bad but people should stop thinking that they looked better with their glasses or without their glasses. You are absolutely breath-taking either way!

 

• The jealous friend: every story needs a little bit of jealousy to start the drama or to make the lead decide their love interest. It was cute when they hinted that Ron Weasley had always been wary of Hermione’s relationship with Harry. His fear was so strong that his insecurity came out in the form of a dark, twisted nightmare from Voldemort’s’ horcrux. Gale Hawthorne was always on the edge upon hearing his beloved Katniss’ relationship with Peeta. However, none of the above mentioned characters looked smoldering when they were jealous. Negative emotions should never be romanticized. It only lessens the importance of the feelings of the one being jealous. This scenario goes both ways for males and females. 

 

Have an out-of-context Ronald Weasley meme to make your day

While there is indeed happiness in whatever relationship you pursue or friendship you choose, you must never try to apply a novel’s trope to reality. Don’t casually think you can ‘fix someone’ and make their problems disappear. Books serve as a medium of knowledge that help you learn new things and expand your imagination. Draw a line between your imagination and reality, for imagination can be a little closer to delusion too.To all those readers out there, who listen to Fifty-Fifty’s Cupid religiously to console themselves, please do not even think of giving cupid a second chance in this Asian household. You might end up being a hopeless romantic forever so let’s not get ahead of ourselves.