Relationships Anonymous

Hello my name is Lesia and I'm a Relationship-aholic.  I’m guessing it goes way back to my childhood.  Freud would probably say it’s all my Daddy’s fault and the way he treated my Momma.  But I do love me some relationship details.   Of course, having been in the library business, studying relationship statistics for me is like three fingers of Scotch is to Ron White.  Can’t go on stage without it!

And I got to thinking about this because sitting on my desk is the usual array of current (and not so current—I’m way behind here) romance titles as well as a full buffet of relationship self-help books and sex how-tos..   I don’t know why they appeal to me so.  But they do.  And there’s secular help as well as Christian help.  One of my favorites is Dr Gottman’s Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work as well as Kevin Leman’s Sheet Music which I recently dug out of the stacks.  I’ve also got the Kama Sutra, but then everyone has that, right?  It’s like the Bible.   And the Joy of Sex, because it would be the New International Version!  And then there’s the Naked Ape, can’t forget that one.   And Gary Chapman has that whole lineup of Five Languages going on.  I’ve got that too.  Ok.  I have a plethora of these things!  Like I said ….Relationship-aholic!  

I also have a want list of new titles….The Jane Austin Guide to Happily Ever After by Elizabeth Kantor; Maybe He's Just an A-hole, a “provocative new dating guide” by Halle Kaye;  and the soon to be released Chicken Soup for the Soul:  Happily Ever After by Jack Canfield and others.  Oh!  And there’s this other book, it eludes me….no really it does!  I saw it on the shelf at Barnes and Noble several years ago, decided to wait a day or two to buy it (I am reasonable, after all) and poof it was gone.  Not from the shelf necessarily, but the recall to its title completely evacuated my brain!  All I remember is it told of a miniskirt nightmare date…the climbing up into one of those over-sized macho trucks that needs a ladder and what the guy visually got for his efforts from the minute the date started.  I so wish I could find that book!  It was hilarious….I think.  : /

So if I was 21 again and knew what I know now, I think this would be a monumental clue that I should major in Women’s Studies or Anthropology or maybe even Sexology or Psychology.   I guess it makes sense that I’d write about relationships.  But that’s not the reason why I decided to write stories of romantic whimsy.  

I hear other writers talk about how they write because they have to get the characters out of their head.  And I get that… really, I do.  But for me, it’s how many ways can human interaction come out on the paper and make a compelling example of all that relationship goo inside my head?  And goo it is, because I’ve got to tell ya…..there’s some wild and wacky stuff inside my relationship-head!   

And now you know my habit.  I’m not so anonymous after all.  So do tell….do you haunt the internet and bookstores looking for the latest Mars and Venus?   Do you suffer from ORD, Obsessive Relationship Disorder? Are you a sucker for Happily Ever After?