WHAT WOMEN WANT is for their mind to stop being filled with fantastical falsehoods.

Okay. So. 

As a 20 year old woman who loves to ingest media of all forms, of course, I am not a stranger to a good book. More specifically, a good romance book. And even more specifically, a good fantasy romance book. Or as “booktok” has coined it : romantasy.

Yes, I know, even I cringe writing that let alone saying it.

Anyways, I began my journey into romantasy in the summer going into my junior year with the renowned Blood and Ash series by JLA. And, let me tell you. It rocked my world.

I quickly spiraled into a web of alternate realities fueled by the fantastical world in my recent read and began shelving each one away into an archive that has continuously piled up each year. 

And don’t even get me started about the way I had soon found myself constantly rolling my eyes at my 16 year old high school boyfriend, frustrated that he wasn’t punching every boy that dared look at me for too long. 

Long story short, while these books have introduced incredible, visceral, and creative pictures, stories, and lives in my head, it has also created a prison. 

Ever since that summer four years ago, when I spent a week living breathing and eating Blood and Ash, my torment has not stopped. I now measure up every man I interact with (I interact with very little men) to an imagined 6’4” fae warrior, with tattoos all over his beautiful bronzed skin, who’s emotionally in tune and can deliver 4 orgasms in under 45 minutes. 

WHICH IS INSANE. In what world does this exist? 

And that right there, is the problem question. 

Because, all jokes aside, I truly do believe in these worlds. 

And at points I feel like this has genuinely become harmful to my mental health. I spend hours each day daydreaming and yearning to be living in these fantasy worlds. I still have a ridiculously small hope that someday soon I will be visited by some magical being, told that I possess some magical power, and that I will be whisked away to a beautiful planet, meet a beautiful man, and embark on an epic journey through a fantasy realm.

And while this could possibly happen (just let me have this okay), it more than likely will not. And I am embarrassed to say that this genuinely depresses me. I notice myself spending too much time in my head, to the point where I feel like I am missing things around me. I focus too hard on these elaborate and detailed fantasies, when I should be giving greater amounts of time to the magic of the world right in front of my eyes.

Our world-my world, holds magic too-the kind that, if written into a book, would sound like a fantasy realm. And while this world may not contain a fae high lord who has great magical powers, it does contain kind, gentle, funny, and even beautiful men, who while may not be able to actually make a woman orgasm 4 times, will at least make it clear that they want to try. 

I enjoy my fantasy books. And I will most likely never stop reading them. I also enjoy my time spent in my head, and I think that the creativity bursting from there is good to certain extents. However, I do need to take some time to start looking up, and to appreciate what's around me, cherishing and enjoying my stories, but knowing when to close the book, and the fantasy that goes along with it.

I will however still be imagining Casteel when I use my vibrator.