The Lesson That #Booktok Teaches Us
I love #Booktok. I’ve loved romance even before it blew up across Tiktok. But, today, as I was reading the tenth version of “Being rejected by a werewolf and ending up with his baby” I felt something from deep inside me. I could never be that dependent. Growing up as I did, a middle child, but also where family struggle felt inescapable, I could never become a problem.
That moment, when he rejected her, and she was exiled? That felt like my worst nightmare. That was what I feared. No back up plans, nothing to depend on beyond myself. And yes, the FMC picked herself back up, dusted herself off and went on with life. But, at what cost? She was never the same. And the end of the story, when she forgives him for the rejection, she goes back to that life, adorn with jewlery that doesn’t belong to her and would slip from her hands within a moment.
I know that the romance is being able to trust your partner with everything that you’ve got. But I’ve read too many stories about women losing their lives because they wanted to leave. I’ve watched my mother hesitate time and time again, because she won’t leave him. Why? Because he’s her support system. And no matter how much he threatens to leave, she would never leave him because she doesn’t know who she is without him.
I don’t want to rebuild from the ashes. Sure, I love a good story about a fierce woman, but I don’t want to put myself in that position. I don’t want to become a housewife and lose my identity, lose all the work that I’ve put into my hobbies, my personality, and my goals. Of course, the option is always there. When I was younger, my father used to say that if having a job didn’t work out so well, I could just marry well. What happens when he cuts me off? There are no repercussions for men filing divorce against their housewives. Societally speaking, I would become a gold digger, even though I was contributing my entire life to raising something in the background.
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So, that’s what I learnted about myself. No matter the grind, no matter the grueling hours, I wouldn’t trade this for that. For the condescending smile when someone asks what you do and you reply with “Homemaker” or something along those lines. For the “Oh, what did you expect?” if, and/or when he hits me for not making dinner properly or objecting to his decisions. My mother has a job, but she’s still cooking, cleaning, sweeping up all the messes. Its 2026 and she’s still working the “second shift”.
I don’t want that for me. I want more. And perhaps that’s the wildest part of all of this, for the first time in history, I could have that incomphrehensible more. I could own a house and open a business and travel the world. Don’t get me wrong, its not that I’m not grateful to my parents for immigrating, or everything they’ve done.
I know they say that you can have both. But I’ve never met someone who does. Perhaps that’s our job, to prove that we can, but the millenials who said they did burnt out while smiling at an audience.
I’d like to live without the boundaries, without fear, and without that wretched dependency that cuts me to this day.
If you do too, feel free to comment and tell me more.
