FML Fridays - The Awesome Awkwardness of Love

When you're sixteen and in love, the world feels infinite; you feel invincible.  There's nothing you can't conquer.  I guess that's why YA books and romance fit together so well.

Love, first love, is this intoxicating thing.  I'm convinced that the reason most of us suck at relationships is because we're all chasing that first love high.  Time allows us to forget the awkwardness and the humiliation that surrounded it, and allows us only to remember how we felt like flying.

The sheer amount of dumbass stuff I did in the name of love is enough to fill twenty books, which is good for me, I suppose.  I did things that I look back on now and bury my head in shame.  And I wasn't the only one.  All my friends were idiots.  Even the guys who thought they were too cool for all that crap, yeah, they were the biggest idiots of all.

When I wrote the relationships in FML, I wanted to show relationships at various stages.  The good, the bad, and the ugly.  Not every guy is Edward Cullen.  Most guys are morons. They try, but they're usually not cool, rarely suave, frequently they're sweating through two shirts and a thick layer of deodorant, hoping that no one notices how freaking scared they are.

At the start of FML, that's how Simon Cross is.  Scared.  In love.  Willing to do anything to win Cassie's heart.  He doesn't crawl through her window to watch her sleep, but I'm not ashamed to say that I've done my best to show Simon in all his awkward glory.  And it was worth it.  Because the moments between the awkwardness, the few shining moments where Simon gets to see and feel real love.  Those are the moments he's invincible.  Those are the moments he's really alive.

I think everyone deserves that feeling.  Even if they're an awkward sixteen-year-old who hasn't got a clue.