Love, Actually… Comes with Morning Breath
A romantic guide with reality checks and zero soft lighting.
I spent most of my teens glued to romance novels, clutching them to my chest and thinking, So this is how true love works!
Spoiler: it wasn’t.
It took me a solid decade to figure out why my love life didn’t spark like a Harlequin plot line—and I’m blaming my parents. They failed to drag me, kicking and screaming, to some obscure village where I could gracefully fall into a river and be rescued by a sexy Spanish heartthrob with an accent that could melt my pound puppy heart.
Thanks, Mom and Dad, for keeping my life tragically unscripted.
But what if they had? What if my life had unfolded like a paperback romance?
Well, for me, it probably would’ve gone something like this:
I’m sweet-sixteen, obsessed with books, tucked away in my bedroom reading the latest romance novel. Suddenly, my parents burst in: “Pack your bags! We have to catch the redeye to Argentina to save a remote village from flooding!”
They drag me, screaming, “Wait, I have a book report due on Friday!”
Our plane lands six hours later and we are ushered through darkness to an awaiting rusted Jeep. After a rough ride through mud-soaked roads, we arrive at a fog-drenched South American village just as the sun peeks over the horizon. I’m sweating in a hut, drained by heat and humidity. Naturally, I wander to the river to cool off. I’m tightroping my way across a dilapidated bridge where, sure enough, I trip over a goat and fall in.
In dives a dreamy young man, yelling in a lusty Spanish accent, “I got you, don’t be frightened!”
Unfortunately, I discover he’s talking to the goat. He helps me out anyway, and cradling Pepita (yes, the goat) like a war hero while sauntering off into the mist without so much as a glance back.
I spend my remaining weeks in sweltering heat learning the about the pains of removing leeches.
Reality for the win!
As I got older (and a little more seasoned), I realized the romance I used to chase lived in the hopeful imaginations of the young—or occasionally the delusional. I learned real romance isn’t packaged and it’s not scripted. It’s personal and it’s wildly subjective. For example, my husband has never bought me flowers. Not once, even when we were dating. But he has stopped on the way home to bring me a brisket sandwich.
If that’s not romance, I don’t know what is.
I’m not a cynic—I actually love love. I’m just more of a fan of love rooted in reality, where he has eye goop and she has student loans. I know my bitterness has a lot to do with how early in life I got disillusioned about what love looked like. If you’ve read my Drive Home series, you’ve witnessed that special unraveling of getting hopeful and then quickly let down. There was a stretch of time when I couldn’t stomach romance novels, avoided rom-coms like they were monstrous horror films, and quietly loathed every “I found my person” post on social media.
The truth is, most of our ideas about love didn’t appear from thin air. We soaked them in over time. Every movie, every song, every well-worn paperback—all quietly teaching us what love should look like. And while there’s absolutely nothing wrong with scripted romance, there should be a warning attached.
Warning:
Side effects of real love may include vulnerability, unexpected laughter, uncomfortable conversations, and sharing the last bite of your burrito without resentment.
Media has spent decades convincing us that love will always find a way. And yes, sometimes it does. But most of the time, love finds a way because two people make a path. It’s so easy to believe those stories—that if you just wait long enough, or wish hard enough, or bump into someone at exactly the right moment… everything will fall into place like it’s supposed to.
That’s not foolish. That’s human. We were all raised on those stories. We want to believe them.
In all honestly, I did find my person. I just had to be married to someone else for twenty-one years first. Yes, it took that long for me. Then I had to do the real work of unlearning a whole lot of habits and ideas that didn’t belong in a healthy relationship. Genuine love didn’t just happen because we were “meant to be.” It happened because we both chose to show up differently. We changed and we compromised. We built something together that worked for us.
And that’s the part the romance novels usually leave out. This isn’t to say I don’t understand the need for escape, to imagine ourselves within the pages of the perfect love. I’m looking at the process of recognizing reality and tempering expectations of what romance truly looks like. So many go through life setting standards that are unrealistic.
Psychologists will tell you how falling in love taps our primal brain networks that drive hunger, thirst, and craving. That dopamine hit ignites excitement, then oxytocin and norepinephrine generate that sense longing. This neural trifecta makes our heart race and our palms sweat when the one we’ve dreamed of is standing in our midst.
Always exciting, right?
However, as time wears on, we must navigate being our own person while still being open to love, and not lose ourselves in it. You’re building deep, real bonds with someone—not just surface-level stuff with grand gestures.
Have you ever wondered what your love life would actually look like if the world operated by scripted romance rules? Where perfect soulmates lurk around every corner, and grand gestures happen at just the right time? Where mysterious strangers ruin your life, but in a sexy way?
Wonder no more as I have created a nifty handbook of Eight Romance Rules based on amorous precepts offered in books and movies. For funsies, I will include the notes I’d likely scribble in the margins.
♥️ Romance Rule #1: Morning Breath Does Not Exist
In romance novels, people wake up ready to make out. They are glowing, radiant, and minty-fresh like they slept inside a mouthwash commercial.
Morning breath is real. And it smells like regret and last night’s nachos.
♥️ Rule #2: Weather Will Cooperate
Rain is always for dramatic effect. Snow falls gently in slow motion. Wind is artful, never blowing your hair directly into your lip gloss.
Florida says hi. Frizzy hair and sweaty boobs suit you.
♥️ Rule #3: Makeup is Flawless
Crying and betrayed? Lost everything? Good news—your eyeliner is still gorgeous.
Puffy eyes, red nose, and you 100% look like a raccoon.
♥️ Rule #5: Spontaneous Kisses Fix Everything
Arguments and misunderstandings are all solved by passionately shutting them up with a kiss.
Attempt this move and you will—for sure—get throat-punched.
♥️ Rule #6: Perfect Timing is Magic
He appears right when she needs him most. She happens to overhear his vulnerable confession.
Sorry I missed your call. I was on the toilet.
♥️ Rule #7: True Love is Concealed in Enemies
He’s rude because he likes you. She’s indifferent because she cares. That person trying to sabotage your life? Future soulmate.
That’s not tension, sweetheart. That’s a red flag in nice jeans. See you in therapy.
♥️ Rule #8: Conflict Resolution Requires Zero Growth
Forget accountability. Just show up in the rain with a speech you absolutely didn’t rehearse.
Wet and still emotionally unavailable. Just apologize and get me tacos.
Unlike romance novels, where love is often a whirlwind of destiny and sacrifice, real-world love requires mental gymnastics to align personal freedom with vulnerability. This is why romance novel rules flop in reality. They sell you on love as this all-consuming, lose-yourself-in-the-other-person whirlwind—soulmates crashing together like waves in a storm. But real love requires mental clarity to hold onto you while letting someone else in. It also requires a sense of humor when things go wrong.
If you expect a novel’s version of love, you’re setting yourself up for heartbreak because you might lose yourself trying to chase that fantasy—or feel crushed when the other person doesn’t morph into your perfect hero. Most of us are pretty sure we know love when we feel it.
Before Panties Get Bunched
I’m not here to cancel romance novels. I absolutely recognize their value. I grew up on them and studied them like sacred texts—dog-earing pages while mentally casting myself as the female character. Although my reading has expanded to other areas, I still get emotionally involved in two characters fighting for love. It’s comfort food—like carbs for my heart.
Modern romance follows a tried-and-true recipe: central love story, emotional stakes, throw in a misunderstanding, and an ending where two lovers meet in the rain. They’re full of yearning and smoldering tension that would never survive in the real world without someone getting a restraining order.
But like I mentioned: we have to ensure we don’t use the genre in making a game plan for love in real life. That’s more like slow burn meets situational comedy. There might be awkward silences, questionable takeout choices, and the deeply unsexy allure of folding laundry next to someone who knows all about your weird. And they still want in.
But if I were to lean into writing fantasy romance...
I’m accidentally locked inside a charming little bookshop tucked away on a cobblestone street. It’s the kind of place that smells like old paper, cedar shelves, and the faintest trace of mystery.
He owns it, obviously. The poet. The beautiful soul whose heart surely hides some exquisite wound. He’s leaning against the counter, lost in whatever tortured verse he’s summoning onto the page. A lock of impossibly unruly hair falls across his forehead, begging to be brushed away.
He doesn’t notice me at first. Because that’s how this works. I clear my throat—delicate, feminine. His head lifts. Our eyes meet. And for a fleeting, moment, the world stops.
He smiles as he steps toward me. Slowly. Like a man approaching his destiny… or maybe the last cupcake at a bakery.
And just as I prepare for whatever comes next—a line of poetry, a confession, a kiss written in the stars—his face changes.
His nose twitches and then it happens.
The violent, unstoppable, sneezing fit of a man allergic to my Sol de Janiero that I got on sale at Ulta (yes, #71). Bent over, gasping between sneezes, he waves me away.
“You have to leave,” he manages, breathless. “I’m… allergic to vanilla.”
Okay, fine, maybe I am a bit of a cynic. Watching my twenty-year-old daughter make plans for holidays and anniversaries stirred something in me. I want her to believe in love, but not the kind that hinges on tradition or ticking boxes. Because inevitably, someone falls short, and disappointment sets in.
Take Valentine’s Day, for example. It might seem sweet on the surface, but let’s be honest—it’s more about pressure than passion. Those $10-a-dozen roses magically jump to $60 for a half-dozen. What’s a college boy on a budget supposed to do? We don’t need a holiday to define love. Real love shows up in the everyday things. It’s in the ordinary moments where we choose each other again and again.
Still, I do my best to keep those thoughts to myself around her. I find quiet, clever ways to help her understand it’s okay if there isn’t a giant bouquet or a candlelit dinner. She’ll have her own love story to live through, and maybe it will unfold like a romance novel. But if it doesn’t, I hope she’ll still know that love is never about the spectacle. It’s in the showing up.
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