By: Monica Lin

If you stare into my eyes, you can almost notice a faint pink tint hiding underneath my hazelnut tones. I say “almost” because you cannot tell whether it’s my eyes or yours playing tricks. As you’ll breathe in and wonder about it, I’ll flush in the shades of a sunset; muddy pink, gold and lilac. 

The act is so subtle that unless we’re face to face, only breaths apart, you will not be able to see it. You’ll wonder, just a little, if you need to see an optometrist. I, on the other hand, will already be in love. Both of our hearts will beat in a similar fashion, mine powered by romanticization, and yours by the ordinary. 

Romanticization is both my downfall and salvation. My eyes are cast with a shade of rose as if someone put sunglasses on me and I have never taken them off. Whether I know how to take them off is another topic. Perhaps I never knew I had these glasses on in the first place; do I even know that I am being tricked? Where is the line between continuously knowing you are oblivious and actually being oblivious? For me, I feel it has blurred into a fever dream. 

As a result, I love everything my skin touches, whether that be people or objects. I romanticize the velvet sensation of romance, the giggles of a newfound crush, and the confusion of breakups that didn’t really break up. I bask in sunsets and sunrises, moonsets and moonrises, and all the phases of the stars in between; soaking in their sunshine, moonshine, or faint glowy blinks. Everything I touch and see is directed as a movie scene in my mind and I am the lead star, glittering with each monologue. The audience is filled with my carbon copies who cheer when I mutter a particularly romantic phrase; they’re a class of high school boys applauding for their friends as they present. I rejoice in their affection. It’s what thrives me to outshine the next time. 

While they cheer for me–quite loudly I might add–they do not cheer for any others. Everyone else falls short of the audience’s expectations. It is as if I am the only one able to reach their anticipations, molding their wants and needs to fit me and only me. Consequently, I’ve become the main character of my own story, both to cope with never being the main character in anyone else’s and never feeling loved. Twisting and turning my head to pose at my best angles; I am a master at romanizing every phrase to make it seem right out of a storybook. 

This habit was taught directly from my obsession with being the star of an unspoken novel, which sprouted from every book I have ever consumed. While the teachers in elementary school praised the idea of reading more—it expands your vocabulary and sentence structure—I commend the idea of not falling in love with the fairy tales the novels will feed you. Those fairy tales are carefully crafted and told for the sole sake of entertainment; they will corrupt your mind, filtering everything in a pale pink glow. It’s eating the apple from the tree of knowledge; I suppose one could call me Eve. Who is the serpent in this story? I blame society. 

This mindset might as well have been rooted inside me ever since I was an infant. As a child, deprived of friendships and isolated from my peers, I turned to long novels of fantasy and romance as my coping method. There is a reason why fantasy is such a hit among teenagers. There is a reason why instead of walking mindlessly during recess, I settled for sitting in the shade of the school building, drinking in novels for kids twice my age. I could lose myself within the paragraphs, letting myself live the mind of an unrealistic character; someone else much more capable than me in every sense of the word. It was easy to read and forget reality for a second; I was the main character for 40,000 words. 

So, I dreamed. I dreamed of becoming someone I was not and being the standard of beauty. I wondered about blond hair, hairless limbs, slim waists, and doe eyes, for I never read about anyone like me; olive skin and hairy arms, chubby cheeks, and quiet eyes. I pondered about the hot kid falling in love with the nerd, and went to bed dreaming of our futures together. I let myself fall into a hole of fantasies and inflated romances; if those characters could experience it, why couldn’t I? What was stopping me? I was too young to know the difference between fantasy and reality. 

I didn’t even have favourites. I read everything and nothing, sticking to stories that had hints of romance between them. I read about heterosexual couples, for homosexual couples were just not a thing. I read about white-passing females catching the eye of white-passing men; finding a book about another race was rare. All the characters had fair skin unless otherwise stated. Representation matters for children and there are few representations of my culture, forcing me to reach for something beyond the stars in the sky. I wanted to be loved in the same ways the characters were loved. I wanted honest and simple relationships; I wanted to be a hero riding the back of a dragon, ready to reclaim their homeland; I wanted friends the same way those characters had their #1 BFF and to have someone hold me as I cried, like them. In a state of complete desire and loneliness, I developed a dependency on novels. I would eat romance novels at their spines during lunch, recess, and home, devouring paragraphs with each breath. I would ugly cry when a fictional couple break up over a misunderstanding, and I would squeal when they confess. You wouldn’t see me anywhere without a book in hand. I needed to let myself forget and transform into someone better than myself. I needed to let go.

I would especially enjoy novels depicting characters falling in love at the wrong time; they were not meant to be, no matter how hard they tried, but at last! A miracle! They could be together! I believed I was just unfortunate and fate was quietly threading my strings for me. I must be patient and get through this tycoon to reach the eye. To combat my restless patience, I started exaggerating every single action in my life, hoping it can quicken the lengthy process of romance. However, I do not believe I knew I was doing this. It just happened; a snail’s race to the pit. 

“A quiet boy talked to me today. I think he’s in love. Is fate finally done tying my strings?” This scenario happened many times; I had a “crush” on anyone who showed a snippet of affection toward me. The pink glow orchestrates that behind the scene, subbing my crush’s simple, mundane actions for something much grander in my mind. I could not see things as coincidence or chance. It was fate, it had to be. Romance became more than two people falling in love and instead was long poems and breathless moments. It was velvet and sunshine and as striking as a thunderbolt. My expectations skyrocketed; my lovers could not be anything less than perfect. When they were, I cast them aside, still wishing for something unfathomable. 

This story extends much more than I wish. Romanticizing romance turned into romanticizing self-harm into romanticizing academics into romanticizing life. Books taught me the glamourized version of life; I believed that relationships were meant to be a utopia and never understood why my heart would pound in fear instead of excitement. I mistook my anxiety for butterflies in my stomach. I thought messages left on delivered were people simply playing hard to get. I never understood my first relationship and why I was not in love. Why did I feel forced to talk to them? I’m supposed to feel content, right? Isn’t your heart supposed to flutter when you see them? Why does it seem like I am scared instead? Embarrassed even? When my then-boyfriend came in for a kiss, why did I recoil? Was I disgusted? But I loved him, didn’t I? When he placed his arm around my shoulder, why did I float out of my body? Why did I feel so scared when she came close to me? The list goes on and on. 

I think, for now, I will try and take off my glasses. I will be hurt by reality and their honest truths, but it is for the better. I will love with my soul instead of my mind, letting myself be instead of tricking myself into something I am not. I will forget and forgive, take my time, and allow myself to exist before chasing someone down. I remind you, readers who relate a little too much, life is endless. One will live and live, and for those who want it, love will come eventually like the famous saying: “There is always more fish within the sea”. We are all just in lakes, drifting and waiting. To love and be loved are actions we learn and portray in many different ways and I urge you to remember that you do not need to be loved by another to feel loved, for you are love itself, and within you is something as glorious and angelic as a fairy tale.

It is time to take off our rose-pink glasses.