A Classic Romance

Dear The One,

Back in the early spring of 2023, I was talking to some girl about dating and relationships. She said: "If you know so much, why are you still single?"

Something about the way she said it hit the fears inside of me. She was right. Why was I single? Why was it that all my efforts to learn about relationships and attraction still left me without something real? I thought about how old I was, and how my age was viewed in my church culture.

I began to feel some amount of shame. It wasn't huge. It took me several hours to figure out why I felt so unsettled and off. When I did, I fell deeper into the shame. How could I overcome that? How could I reconcile just how unwanted it made me feel that this random girl questioned my singleness? Was there something wrong with me? Why was it that I was single when I knew how to be attractive to women?

I pondered the question and I pondered why I was still single. When the answer came, it hit suddenly and brought great peace to my heart. Yes, I was single, but I knew WHY I was single, and my reason was good.

I got my answer as I thought about all the greatest romances in books and in cinema and recognized a pattern.

There is an unspoken rule about stories of romance. Sometimes story writers do break this rule but in the end, it only damages the story's fidelity. What is this rule? Well, it has to do with the preconditions of the characters before the romance can start, and it is quite simple.

Neither of the love interests can have given up on real love and are not dating (or seeking to date) someone for alternative reasons.

They're not dating someone that isn't right for them or makes them feel like they are settling. They haven't given in to loneliness or desperation. They may be considering giving up on dating or settling for someone who isn't right, but the story cannot progress until these feelings are overcome. If they are dating someone they don't belong with, the story can't proceed until after they see their mistake and end that relationship.

The Beauty and the Beast would not have been any story at all if Belle had chosen Gaston because if she did, we'd all know it was for the wrong reasons. We'd all know that she wasn't seeking real love. In fact, Belle isn't even looking for true love at the start of the story. She's looking for adventure and "something more than this provincial life." But what she is definitely not doing is getting into relationships with someone who is not right for her. The thought never even crossed her mind. Even her father's attempts to suggest Gaston to her were met with an immediate "nope!"

As I pondered the shame I felt that day, I realized that I am single because I have always been waiting for something real and something true. Even as I dated around and met a lot of girls, I never ended up in a committed relationship because, in my heart of hearts, I knew what I was waiting for and knew that I hadn't yet found it.

Even as I share that, I've realized in the year since that while I was waiting for true love, I wasn't always waiting in a healthy way. So what does it truly mean to "wait for true love?" and why do all the great romances follow this rule that the characters can't be settling for something else for the story to even start?

In the stories where this rule is broken, the story cannot successfully continue until the offending romantic interest wises up and ends their relationship with their "wrong person" and starts willingly waiting for a person they can truly love. If they wait to do this until after meeting and receiving interest from a better, potential mate, the fidelity of the romance is damaged. It's no longer a story about someone waiting for true love, it's just a person trading up--and perhaps doing it unfaithfully. Even if the person they "trade up" for is their true love, it just doesn't feel right.

It's no longer a true romance but becomes something else, something tainted. It's this taint that follows Rory Gilmore from the show Gilmore Girls (spoilers for Gilmore Girls after this point) as she jumps from Dean to Jess, to Logan. She falls for Dean, who is a great guy and whom she loves, but she is young and doesn't recognize that perhaps something is missing. When Jess comes along, she sees that there can be more. She sees a true connection on an intellectual level. But she doesn't let her relationship with Dean end first. Instead, she jumps to Jess and breaks Dean's heart. You could forgive her for being young and not knowing what a more earnest connection looks like, but the fact that she's cheating on Dean taints her and destroys her ability to develop something real with Jess.

In the end, it all ends with sad and disastrous results.

Later, Rory is single again when she meets Logan. He is pretentious and awful to her, but she has a chance to look past his faults as the story progresses. He is her first chance to show she is waiting for something real and right and true.

Redhead Reporter says of them: "Logan and Rory appear to be toxic in their own ways, but in my opinion, they complimented each other at the end of the day. They fought in similar ways, had parental issues, both relied on access to the wealthy world, and each had a stake in the world of academics and writing. Furthermore, they grounded each other. Rory was capable of calling out Logan for his drinking, irresponsibility, and carelessness. Logan was able to call Rory on her insensitive writing and self-centeredness."

Even with something so good developing with Logan, she lets Dean back into her life and leads him on for a while, letting him believe they could be getting back together, while the truth in her heart is that she's falling for Logan. What could have been a true romance is tainted again by Rory's dithering. She wants true love, and she's confused about where to get it, but she's not willing to pay the price to wait for it and put aside everything that isn't true love. It's no surprise to me that when Logan asks her to marry him, she turns him down, prioritizing "living her life."

In the next series, "A Day in the Life" she ends that series pregnant with Logan's child, having cut off contact with him after having an affair with him. The show ends with a single woman, pregnant, with plans to remain that way. The greatest and saddest irony of this ending is that we can see that Jess has grown into the kind of man she always wanted him to be, but she still doesn't choose him, even though he would still gladly take her.

Despite being a very attractive man who could have been with many women, Jess only ever loved her. He stayed single for years and years because he was waiting for true love and would not have anything less, no matter how long or how much growth was required of him. He did all of that, but his heart was still in love with a woman who was not authentically waiting for true love, despite all her desires for it. So he ends up alone, too, with a broken heart.

This rule about true romance is so true that you can often spot which characters are not the focus of the romance simply by determining who is most blatantly breaking it. In the classic Disney adaptation of Cinderella, Cinderella's step sisters do not care if they marry a man they genuinely love. They care only that he is of high status and wealth. They have "given up on real love" and are instead desperate for marriage to someone neither of them loves. Thusly, they are clearly not a primary romantic interest, nor the main character. Cinderella's focus on a love that is real immediately sets her apart as the main character. Rory only got away with being the main character for so long because she seemed like she was looking for true love. Her romance turned into a tragedy because she was not able to keep focus on that end, and frequently made decisions that were not in alignment with that final goal.

It has been a few years since I had this realization. At the time, it helped me understand (in part) why I was still single. It wasn't that I was fundamentally incapable of commitment. I was waiting for the right kind of commitment.

But I wasn't waiting for it in the right way.

I was waiting for it like Rory Gilmore.

It was back in early 2024 that I first watched Gilmore Girls. I'd felt an urge in my heart to watch it despite knowing nothing about it. I didn't fully understand why at the time. As I watched, I fell in love with Rory as a character. I thought she was brilliant, witty, intelligent, deep, and even captivating. I was happy to watch her budding romance with Dean. I didn't relate to him like I related to Rory, but I was fine with that. He was good to Rory and loved her and she loved him.

Then Jess showed up.

He was the first male character I related to in the show, and I wanted him to end up with Rory, despite my frustration with his often assine behavior. You might think I was happy when Rory started talking to him, but I wasn't. I hated it. I hated Rory for it, even though I thought they were better for each other. I literally shouted at the screen--at Rory--saying "No! You have Dean! He's in love with you! You're in love with him! Don't do this!" She did it anyway and my heart began to grieve. As each season passed, I grieved more and more as Rory threw away her chances at real love with her fickleness and lack of true commitment. I grieved as I watched her kind of get back with Dean, only to lead him on as she fell in love with Logan. Her infidelity began to make me sick. On days when I watched the show, I found myself depressed. I wanted to stop watching but each time I would that same urge returned to my heart and I eventually finished.

A few months previous to watching Gilmore Girls I'd had feelings in my heart to stop dating. Thus, as I watched GG, I hadn't been on a date or had a kiss since October. I was in the longest period of deliberate singleness of my life, or rather, the longest period I'd spent avoiding dating and love. Before that, between 2021 and mid-2023, I'd dated a huge number of girls. I'd bounced from woman to woman, just having fun. I had enjoyed getting to know them and kissing some of them, but all the while I hadn't been willing to get into a relationship with any of them because I was waiting for something real and right. Even so, I knew that some of those girls had wanted more with me, and I'd led them on.

So as I watched Gilmore Girls, a part of me knew that I had in me the same thing in Rory that I had come to hate. I was "waiting" for true love by withholding commitment, but I wasn't "waiting" for true love in the way I was dating. I was full of fear that I would become just like Rory. Hurting those around me. Leading people on. Committing infidelity. Something was broken in me, and I knew it.

Yes, I wasn't willing to be in a committed relationship until I found true love, but I wasn't committed to finding it and making the necessary sacrifices along the way. I wasn't willing to fully follow that rule I'd discovered. I hadn't been willing to be alone while I waited for something right.

I guess I'm here to tell you that I'm willing to follow that rule now and that I have been. It's August and I still haven't been on another date because I'm still not ready. I still haven't kissed anyone because I'm waiting until I feel like I'm kissing someone I truly love.

I'll be following this rule when I run into you. I'll be waiting for a true romance.

Onward and Upward,

Aaron W. Bateman

TLDR;

Basically, Rory Gilmore wanted romance, but she wasn't waiting in the way they do in "classic" romance stories. She was willing to have intimate friendships/relationships with men who weren't her "true love" while she was currently in a relationship with or pursuing someone she thought could be the one for her.

This behavior caused her to lose Dean twice over. Once when she pursued an intimate friendship with Jess, and then when she let herself have a friendship with Logan that had intimate potential while she was rekindling a relationship with Dean. Both times caused Dean to leave when he saw her inappropriate pursuits, hurting him deeply. She didn't have the discipline to focus on the one person she chose. She hadn't learned to truly commit to one man and cut out anything else that could create "entanglements" and weird conflicts. She hadn't learned to protect the heart of the man she chose. In the end, this fundamental attitude leads her to reject a marriage proposal from Logan, even though he had the greatest potential to be the love of her life, choosing instead to pursue her own life over committing to another person.

I realized I've been like Rory throughout my life. Always wanting something romantic, and wanting it so lustfully that I would take any opportunity that looked half decent when it came in front of me. But when something real showed up, I was in the habit of flirting with everyone still and struggled to stop even when I felt like I'd found the right girl. I hadn't learned how to wait for something real. I didn't have the skills of commitment when the time came. And then just like Rory, these attitudes, habits, and beliefs made it impossible for me to have a girl who was right for me.

Hopefully, I've learned enough and changed enough to be ready now.