Romancing A Writer. Why Is It Difficult To Love Us?

Is your spouse a writer? Have you been in a relationship with someone who’s life entangled with words, having no life outside his or her desk? Do you find it difficult to understand romancing a writer? Why is it difficult to love us?

There are a few of the questions you have in mind when we talk about how odd writers are. Yes, as a writer myself, I hear that a lot from my family. My parents thought I didn’t have plans to go outside the house and have a walk. Not even my husband could force it.

Struggle 1: Writers’ Need For Isolation

To write the best-selling book or the story we have in mind, we completely need isolation. We can’t take any form of distraction. Not even a child’s laughter.

For a married woman like me, it’d be difficult. Hence, I am somehow thankful I don’t have one yet albeit my family’s disapproval.

Writing itself needs a lot of mental exercises. If we aren’t in a condition to write a piece of work well, we feel like we just wasted another piece of paper, another 8 hours for a crap. We either throw it away or slam our hands on the desk as we walk away to calm down.

Just so you know, our creative juices will only come out in silence. That’s why it’s no surprise why the writer’s home has to be in a noise-free environment to concentrate and implement its boosted focus to thrive and finish our work. Otherwise, as I said, it will be another piece of trash.

Unlike any other girlfriends or wives out there, I couldn’t enjoy small talk. I find it boring. Mundane.

Rather than spending time with other people and wasting my time with useless things, I tend to shut off from the crowd and find a certain place where I could think.

It doesn’t matter if it’s a novel inspiration or an idea for my next blog post just like this one. It’s as long as I enjoy my thinking more than talking with others. Besides, nobody could understand a thing about what I am saying.

On the other hand, you may find yourself in a position wherein you thought your other half doesn’t care about you nor your feelings because of the detachment. Honestly, it’s not because of that. Your writer partner desires to focus and to calibrate the writing process higher by being alone.

Struggle 2: Cluttered Room/House

This doesn’t only include the writers alone but the avid book readers as well. My mom had a friend whose life revolved around reading romance books. Rather than spending time with her husband at home, she chose to read more books in her vacant time.

When they visited her home once, they were surprised by a hill of piled books unarranged. They were everywhere. Not only that. They noticed the cobwebs and dusty pieces of furniture, too. At the back of my mom’s mind, this was a reality for most writers without knowing her daughter would end up at the same fate.

I rarely have the time to clean my space. Whenever I have vacant time, if it’s a whole day, for instance, I could reserve some hours to clean the house but not the entire space. I couldn’t hold a broom to sweep the floors nor have the time to feed my dog. I do sometimes if my workload allows but my sister does them every day.

Struggle 3: Writer’s Deep Thinking

Since I was a kid, nobody liked to play with me because they found me absurd. Other children like to play at the playground and talk. I don’t.

Most of the time, I stay inside the library alone and stay away from the crowd in silence. I could remember the school principal told me that I was the only pupil who borrowed the library key.

Aside from the teacher’s borrow card, I was the only one at school who owned it with filled notes from the librarian. Other pupils have but they were blank as they prefer playing than reading.

Because of that behavior, I couldn’t remember hanging out with friends for a day. Not even in high school and in college. The only times, where I was forced to stay in a crowd of people, were the meetings and group work. Other than those, I was alone.

Now that I am a married woman and have left my professional job as a teacher, I still do have my tendency because of the nature of my work. I have to concentrate on perfecting each blog post both for my day job and own blogs.

From there, I don’t have time to talk too much with my own family. I could set aside a few hours but then boredom hits me. So, I decided to work on my websites rather than talk more.

This is the most common behavior of the writers. We rather spend a day thinking of the next story we write and the next blog post to work on. That’s why most people think we’re introverts by nature. But neither did they know that even extroverts do the same thing simply because they write.

In general, writing tantamounts to isolation. It’s a lonely road to move forward to. A lonely path filled with despair, dismay, resentment, and pain if you will. Yet, it’s a chosen field with a conscientious decision. We have to face it.

Struggle 4: Alienating Words And/Or Expressions

My husband asks what I was talking about or what the words I said meant. Not only him but my family does the same. My sister most of the time. Because of my chosen profession, I tend to read more and more resulting in learning new words and expressions.

So, whenever I talk to them, I didn’t notice I used more of these new words making them feel awkward. Especially when I was writing my books. When my husband reads one of my works, he searches the dictionary to define some words or asks me personally what the word means.

If you are in a relationship with a writer or of any related area, you’ll notice that these struggles are true. And I bet there are times when you couldn’t apprehend why. You try to find the reasons behind these things but you simply force yourself to accept that these are the natures of your wife’s work, for example.

Everything that comes off from our minds and mouths is too deep for an average person. We don’t speak the same language as other people do. Normally, the majority of the population talks about others and gossip. We don’t. Instead, we speak about ideas that others find boring.

Struggle 5: Detachment

I mean the holistic detachment. Not only emotional, physical, mental but also spiritual. Most writers have doubts on the organized religion. Especially those who are fond of writing fiction. Stephen King is a Methodist but only believes in God, not the church.

I do the same. I am a Catholic but I don’t believe in the Catholic church and its members. I only believe in God and Jesus. Nothing else. In my opinion, most of us tend to believe in what matters rather than conforming to what everybody does.

If 95% of the Filipinos go to church and pray, I belong to the 5% who don’t. Rather I stay home and pray on my own, practicing my faith. To me what Jesus said in the Book of Matthew resonates with me well.

“If you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there’ and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you.” (Matthew 17:20)

Conclusion

Romancing a writer is kind of a difficult life for those who aren’t aware of how our lifestyle works.

We operate things differently as others and ironically, we make more money from what we do than an average 9 to 5 employee. We may be fond of staying inside our lofty homes and think. But we’re also humans, we need a social life.

Our terms won’t match as the majority does. We don’t party and we’re not fond of the Kardashians. What matters to us is the real thing money can’t buy. Ideas, love, the 73 human virtues, among others. Abstract things.

We spend our time alone more than others not because we hate you nor we are angry at you. No, please don’t take it that way. We do that because we need it. We need our mental energy to rejuvenate and resume to the mental stress until we finish our workloads.

From there, we don’t have the leisure time to talk about anything else than books and writing. Nothing else than what we thought was nice to write about.

Thankfully, my husband does support me, although he admitted that he has to adjust a lot because of it. My family took some time to understand the work I do and why I behave differently than other cousins.

Rather than staying outside the house and playing, I choose to lock myself in and work on my own. As my previous post says, it’s hard to be the only writer in the family. And it does feel that way. It’s isolating.

Nonetheless, we’re enjoying our work. All we need from you is understanding from the detachment and our inabilities. In my case, I’m an introverted writer. Much more, I have a lot of incapacities. Social skills are one of them.

Simply because you choose us to be your lovers that doesn’t mean you can dominate and enforce your life to us.

We do understand you are different and you’re social. You may act and behave opposite but there’s one thing we ask from you, like our life partners. Love us truly.

If you love us, accepting our realities won’t be a pain in the butt. That’s all. We aren’t just sitting in front of our typewriters and act lazily, making our writing an alibi for our indecisiveness and act of sloth. We work hard, harder than anybody else. It’s just that it’s not visible for everyone. Only you see it in your own eyes.

Just love us, really. Romancing a writer won’t be difficult if you respect and accept who we are. That’s what matters.