Love: How Do You Like It?

The "Drumming Song" by Florence and the Machine is, in my opinion, the perfect description of all-consuming, mind-blowing, soul-wrenching, dysfunctional romantic relationships.

Obsessive love is:

Louder than sirens
Louder than bells
Sweeter than heaven
And hotter than hell

That's how it felt for me when I fell in love for the first time. It was as if someone hit me over the head, drowned out all rational thought, and made me a puppet to my emotions, to the passion that consumed me.

It was sweeter than heaven. And it was hotter than hell. And I'm not sure that I ever want to go back there again.

As a result, I don't want to take my characters there. I don't want the instant attraction of Edward and Bella or Jack and Rose because instant attraction tends to flare up quickly and burn out equally quickly, usually in a destructive blaze.

Instead, I like romantic relationships to heat up slowly like the controlled flame beneath a gas burner. I think about the British show Doc Martin and how the flawed hero and heroine's relationship develops slowly over the series. I think about GiGi and Gaston. Anne of Green Gables and Gilbert Blythe. Beauty and the Beast. And in the realm of literature, I think about my all-time favorite book Blood and Chocolate by Annette Curtis Klause where the hero "waits" for his heroine, knowing that she is the woman for him.

If anyone stops by, leave a comment and tell me what you prefer. The knee-shaking, heart-pounding, instant-infatuation type of romantic love? Or a love that grows slowly over time, that may even start out as hatred or a general dislike?