Author: Willa Lyons
Date: 2023
Publisher: Willa Lyons
Quote: "Dylan left me alone at the prom, and...I learned he'd only invited me to prom on a dare after losing a bet."
Yes, women still have barriers to break down in this world...self-imposed ones. Yes, it's still realistic that a teenaged girl might be too insecure, if her date left her alone and drooled over another girl, to spend the evening collecting the phone numbers of every other boy who wasn't there with a friend of hers, then go home and spread the word that young Mr. Toad (as in what you have to kiss a few of before you find the prince) was the property of Miss Poacher. It's still realistic that the boy who disrespected his date would still be popular enough, as long as he stayed in his home town where he'd been born a big fish in a small pond, to have a business that would cause the woman he'd insulted to give him a job, later on. These are things that can and should change.
In order for them to change, we need to be more realistic and less romantic. I think this "sweet romance" moves too quickly and lets Dylan the Toad off too easily.
In a world that respects women and our time, physical attractions still wouldn't come out even. Teen heartache is probably as inevitable as teething is. But in a world where Dylan jollywell knew that, if he lost a bet that Cynthia would go to prom with him and was thereby bullied into asking Chloe, he dared not make the evening a disappointment for Chloe, a pleasant if unromantic evening of enjoying the music might have ended with a little speech on Chloe's doorstep like, "I enjoyed the dance. I'm not in love with you; in fact I only asked you because Cynthia turned me down. Still, I'm very grateful that you gave me a chance just to have fun moving to music." That would be the kind of disappointment after which it might be appropriate for Chloe to blather about "starting with a clean slate" and "not holding grudges."
"Grudge" is an ugly word, with its echoes of grouchiness and sludge, but women need to hold men accountable for acts that show disrespect for women.
If behavior like Dylan's is merely a sign of "immaturity," we need to understand that men don't grow out of that kind of "immaturity" without a few "maturing" experiences like, "Please, Miss Chloe, I'm sure you've already offered the gig to every other DJ in a hundred-mile radius. I know prospective employers have been warned not to hire me. I've not had a date since that prom night. Everyone else calls me 'Cynthia's admirer,' as when one woman called the police and asked them please to stop 'Cynthia's admirer' trying to talk to her...except for Cynthia, who calls me 'Chloe's date' and won't talk to me either. It took me more than a year to get a job--minimum wage, back office, prospects of a three-cent hourly pay raise every year, but one year I didn't get a raise because I'd e-mailed another company about a job. The guys don't want to be seen with me any more. Because Your Grace's pardon is the only thing that will ever get me a chance to prove that I'm really trying to become a decent human being, please, may I beg for the privilege of driving for you on any more social occasions you may have. I'm not talking about dates. I'll wait outside in the car."
For the first year or two, a young man who is known to have disrespected any woman on any date needs to be buying tickets for other women and their dates, and waiting in the car.
The fact that our hormones are inside us does not change the fact that they are chemicals. They react to other chemicals. When Chloe was really a year or two too young to have babies, as men and even loser-boys like Dylan could plainly see, that chemical reaction was setting off fireworks in Chloe's little half-grown mind, lights flashing "Baby-Daddy Material!" everywhere. Chloe is still young, Dylan is still young, and those little biochemical neon signs are still flashing even after a few years when Chloe should have been finding a man to bring back to her home town and wave in front of Dylan's face. But they've flashed in reactions to other men's pheromones during those years. If girls like Chloe can be strong and hold out, one day those fireworks will go off in the presence of an honorable man who stays sober and keeps his word.
Chloe and Dylan still have their sweet romance. Nice for them. This novel can be recommended to women who've already found respectful, respectable men, and want to recall the feeling of being twenty-five years old.
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