The other day my therapist, after discussing my dating life at great length, asked me why a smart young woman like myself was inclined to participate in such Wikipedia-entry-worthy disastrous relationships. As I drove home that day, I pondered the question and searched for an answer. Was it my self-esteem issues? Having divorced parents? Childhood trauma? It wasn’t until I passed by my bookshelf at home that night that I remembered the woman to who I could deflect my personal responsibility. Miss Stephanie goddamn Meyer.
I’m not going to lie, Twilight didn’t do my dating life a ton of favors after I grew up. At 12, the thought of dating Edward Cullen was so exciting: he had a nice car, your in-laws would be supernatural creatures, and you got to have the intrigue of dating an older man without having to worry about giving his kids at home daddy issues.
Now that I’m fully grown, none of that shit works. The IRL reality of dating an “Edward Cullen” is hearing about his super strength gym routine, arming your security system to prevent him from standing over your sleepy self at 2 am, and spending weekends at Ross helping him pick out what color peacoat he wants. You look emotionally distant in both, honey, I promise, but parking has a two-hour limit here and they don’t validate.
I’m adult enough to admit that maybe I shouldn’t have expected a fictional man, who has a healthy relationship with his confederate war-hero brother, to instill me with positive romantic skills. In defense of myself, however, I think it’s pretty unfair that they give Edward the entire first book to himself. I had already invested my time and money into this loyalty, just for this newer, hotter man who doesn’t “gaslight” or “break and enter” to come into Bella’s life? I didn’t buy it. Twilight was like a new iPhone drop; all the other girls immediately ran for the new model while I kept a tight grip on the one I already had, alarmingly blasé about how it probably watches me sleep.
You know what Team Jacob girls are doing these days? They’re out there married to nice humans with nice jobs who have nice children in nice houses. They learned that your partners are supposed to treat you nicely, respect your boundaries, the whole she-bang. I don’t really understand what any of those words mean, to be honest, but good for them.
Do you know what Team Edward’s girls are doing? Our best, that’s what.
