The Men Who Ruined Reality for Me

I’ve stopped keeping track of how many fictional men I’ve fallen for. Bold of me to accept it :P...

...not in the fangirl way. Not in a poster-on-the-wall, quote-in-the-bio kind of way.
But in the quiet, irreversible way- the kind where you realize:
"Oh. No one in real life feels like that."
And probably never will.

There was Qais Bhat, who made madness look like worship.
He didn’t love Laila gently- he became her grief.
He didn’t recover. He transcended.
And while everyone around me romanticizes healing and moving on,
I admired the man who stayed broken for love and called it devotion.

Then there was Joe.
A man of few words, but a memory sharp enough to hurt.
He noticed everything.
He remembered what Georgia forgot she ever said.
He didn’t push. Didn’t demand space.
He just... existed, quietly waiting, like a lighthouse in someone else’s storm.
I don’t know if that’s love-
But it’s the kind of presence you don’t find anymore.

And yes- even Ryle.
Flawed beyond redemption, but still layered, still real in the messiest ways.
He made mistakes- the kind you can’t take back.
But his love wasn’t half-hearted.
It was all in- destructive, yes, but deeply human.
Sometimes I wonder what it says about me that I understood him.

These men?
They aren’t role models. They aren’t standards.
They’re just proof of how much more emotion fiction dares to hold.

Because in the real world, people text back late, forget things, get bored.
They talk more than they mean.
They mean less than they feel.

In fiction, there’s weight.
Intent.
Intensity.

I’ve never expected anyone to match it.
And I’m not waiting around for them to.
But I do find it funny sometimes- 
how real people walk into my life,
talk about “connection” and “vibes,”
and I’m just sitting there thinking,
"You don’t even remember what I said ten minutes ago."

So, no- this isn’t about wanting love like fiction.
It’s about knowing I’ve already tasted something deeper
in stories written by strangers
than in conversations with people who claim to care.

Some people don’t grow cold,
they just grow out of conversations that lack depth.

Because once you've felt seen by a page,
understood by a lyric,
held by a scene that never really happened, 
ordinary moments begin to feel like background noise.

Fiction doesn’t ruin reality.
It just teaches you what real could have been, if only the world spoke in subtleties and meant what it said.