When people ask me what I write, I tell them, usually. I don’t always tell all of my customers ( Day job is a part-time bartender. ) mostly because they’re men, and they’re drinking, and sometimes I just don’t feel like dealing with the inevitable questions. So basically, the regulars all know I write, and what (some have even read my books) But when others ask what I write I just say fiction/short stories.

I’ll tell some of them that it’s erotica but not many because, really, it’s none of their business. Anyway, I was having a great conversation with one woman the other night about goals and motivation and stuff. My writing came up and I was open about the fact that the stories I had published were erotica. She asked me, “Do you write erotica so you can pretend to be someone else?”

My answer was, “No, that’s why I write romance.”

It brought to mind the fact that the only man I’ve ever received flowers from is my Dad. That I’ve never actually been on a dinner date, or a movie date, or a picnic, or any of those other things that are supposed to be ‘common dating rituals’.

Is this true for most of the single women today? Is this normal? Is romance still alive and well out there and I’m just not seeing it, or is it dying a slow death that will only live on in novels? And Why do you read romance/ erotic romance?

Another quandry I’ve been mulling over…recently one of my co-workers picked up Lush the other day. When I asked her if she liked it, she said “Yeah, but I can’t help rolling my eyes when I read teh sex scenes.” and giggled.

I asked if it was too explicit, or if it was because she knew I wrote it? (I have one freind who loves erotic romance, but she won’t read mine because it makes her blush to know *I* wrote it. LOL ) Anyway, this lady looked at me and shook her head with a small smile and said it wasn’t the explicitness, or that I write it, but that “sex just isn’t like that in real life.”

The wierd thing, I’m single and I find that sex can and often is as good as what I write, but I’ve yet to experience the romance. She’s been in a long term relationship and is getting married next month, and she thinks sex is never as good as in a book, but she’s had the romance.

What do you think of that? Is it the just a coincidence, or a personality thing? I don’t know if I could marry a guy who didn’t, or couldn’t, rock my world every now and then, no matter how much he romanced me. Maybe writing these stories has skewered my expectations?