Large-audience public proposals.
Those “Jumbotron” proposals? Those big grandiose gestures in public spaces with hundreds to thousands of strangers looking on? That’s not romance. That’s attempted coercion.
It’s not for me personally, but if both parties have discussed and agreed upon the next step ahead of time, I can see it being romantic. I’m sure there are cases where it’s done specifically for the coercive force, but I wouldn’t write off the whole idea. If a couple met at or bonded over a sporting event, I can see how a proposal at a game would be special. It’s not my taste, but to each their own in my opinion.
I’m sure it can be done without being coercive, especially via the discussed and agreed upon thing you mention. But when I see it done in real life, I look at the woman’s facial expressions and body language. It doesn’t seem rehearsed or agreed upon in advance. It looks like it’s genuine shock, and in many cases the body language is intriguingly … defensive. Shoulder in and forward. Arms crossed. Head down.
It’s clear that this was sprung on them by surprise in a lot of cases and that it wasn’t particularly welcome, at least initially, as well.
Shout out to the How The Grinch Stole Christmas (2000) movie for calling this out
Envy of your partner
Pursuing someone who says no because they must just be playing hard to get and you’ll eventually wear them down.
Basically everything like this in romance media
Right now, we actually have a huge issue with psychology language being conflated with emotional intelligence or sensitivity. We really value the ability to identify and communicate our emotions, good, but that isn’t necessarily the same thing as willingness to process or manage them. When I run into someone who’s really up on terms for neuroses and disorders to the point that they see it everywhere, I can safely assume that they think they have a better handle on themselves than what they do.
“I’m doing the work”, “have you done the work” gets under my skin for some reason.
Yes lol exactly, weaponized self-care language.
Omg… That’s what a narcissist would say tho!
Yeah this is a good thing to point out too. People will naturalise any harmful behaviour as a disorder which ends up blurring both that disorder and people’s responsibility to address their harmful behaviour.
Is that you on your profile? I clicked on it to see your userpic better and saw it. I love your hair!
Partners fanatically pursuing someone, or being jealous. It’s red flag city, absolutely NOT romantic, and really, really dangerous. Yet you see it romanticised a lot in media!
Hustle culture.
I have been a player of (tabletop) role-playing games since 1978. (I came at them from the drama flakes side of the fence, not the wargaming side, so this has informed my whole approach to them quite differently from most.) Back in the '70s and early-to-mid '80s there was a lot of cottage industry grade materials circulated in gaming circles for free. As in semi-professional (for the time) binding and typesetting levels of cottage industry. None of it was particularly top-grade in quality (though there were a lot of gems in the rough!), mostly small setting elements, small adventures, or, the most common, “random <insert whatever> charts”: random encounter charts, random reaction charts, random “contents of an outhouse” charts, etc.
Nowadays almost all of that is gone. People have gone to places like itch.io or Drive-Through RPG and peddle this same grade of material for money. And in the process they’re kililng their own enjoyment of a hobby they love (because once your hobby becomes an obligation, you start to resent it instead of celebrating it), and, because commercial forces make you have to go where things are popular, it narrows the breadth of the field so that maybe two and a half games are covered (D&D and the so-called OSR are basically the same thing at the core).
The result is there’s no ecosystem of shared joy any longer, all because people literally…
Probably a wise decision. I’m designing these campaigns for my own use, but I definitely feel an internal pressure to develop something for publication. I feel like I should be working, instead of enjoying myself. [actual quote from one such “publisher”]
…feel guilty because they’re doing something for enjoyment instead of making money from it.
Hustle culture is insidious and omnipresent especially in North America.
Ain’t that the truth! It’s ruthless, destructive and draining. It’s just bad.
WomensStuff is a trans inclusive women’s only community please don’t comment if you’re not in that group
the concept of royal weddings
I have to admit I do love a royal wedding…it’s kind of a guilty pleasure. Sadly in the uk it’ll be another 20 years before the next big one 😔
Also remember no politics, could you possibly edit that out of your comment?
i admit it’s more of a love/hate thing. i do like will and kate and meghan and harry’s but they’re not always like that :(
