Book Men Make Me Believe in Soulmates, Real Men Make Me Believe in Therapy.

If you would’ve asked me a year ago what types of books I read, I would’ve said horror, thriller, true crime, the kind of plots that kept me up at night questioning humanity. But people change, and their preferences change? Right? Somewhere in the midst of solving a true crime, I jumped on the bandwagon of romance novels, where men are brooding over their women, they are emotionally intelligent, and ready to go to war for the woman they love. 

It’s like being embraced into a cult that you never want to leave, which is problematic because I’m also a 25 year old South Asian woman, and according to society, my ovaries are basically halfway close to retirement. 

The age I am at right now is like a scene from a horror movie on loop, where I’m ambushed by aunties asking me“what are your plans, beta?” Plans? Ma’am, I just found out the man in my book has wings and has been looking for his mate for 500 years. I have no plans. 

And look, I’m not saying I expect poetry and sword fights, I’d honestly settle for a guy who knows how to text back in under 48 hours and is not emotionally constipated. But, in this economy and this god awful dating pool, it’s hard to even find that. I recently downloaded hinge, cause that’s what the girlies do, right? You try to be open minded, give a chance to ‘what if something clicks’. But what did I get? A clicking headache. 

Some gems from my Hinge inbox - 

• “Ma’am, please sue me”. - Sir, this is Hinge, not Law & Order: Unhinged Victims Unit 

• “Wanna call you mami” - is this a dating app or an adoption centre? 

• “What’s your body count?” - on a Monday. At 9:30 am. 

• “I can smell you through the screen” - Sir, keep your nose to your screen.

At this point, I’m emotionally bankrupt from dealing with real-life Tamlins, with an emotional range of a soggy bottom. Asking for the bare minimum has recently become a fantasy genre, where I am expecting a man who replies ‘fr’ to trauma dump to give me ‘to the stars that listen, and the dreams that are answered’ energy. The bar has really gone down, ladies and oh, how I blame the man written by a woman authors for it.

So, yes, maybe my expectations are fictional. But after reading chapters of Rhysand brooding like it's an olympic sport, and Kai Young being a walking green flag in a tailored suit, patient and emotionally fluent, you really think a ‘sup’ at 2 am is going to make my heart race? Be serious. I’ve seen what bare minimum looks like with a six-figure vocabulary and moral code. Don't text me and call it romance. 

It’s unhinged. How book boyfriends are out there planning candlelit dinners on the first date while real-life men can’t even show up on the first date (girl, call yourself lucky if he shows up.) Dante Russo is buying dumplings from 36 different restaurants for his wife so that she can decide which one she loves. And here I am listening to a voice note from a man who communicates like a Reddit thread. 

Again, we’re not asking for sword fights and sonnets  (would be nice tho), just a little accountability and a working prefrontal cortex. But that’s too big of an ask apparently. 

So until someone with actual emotional intelligence and maybe a morally gray aura shows up, I’ll be here, wrapped in a blanket of denial, rereading A court of Mist and Fury, and ignoring real men like they ignore emotional accountability. In this economy, healing is hot, communication is foreplay. If you cannot bring Rhysand’s level of emotional empathy, you can stay in Spring Court, baby. 

Because ‘he’s a good texter’ isn’t a green flag. It’s the absolute floor. And honey, we’re building palaces.✨

What’s ruining your dating standards the most right now?

• Men written by women.
• Real men thinking "wyd" = romantic effort
• Reading 400 pages of slowburn and expecting that IRL
• Guys who reply "crazy lol" after trauma dumping