Before I start, A Sci/Fantasy Book Sale and a Sci Fi/Fantasy Giveaway.

I don’t write a lot of love scenes. Romance is a category that feels like to me on the exact opposite end of what I write, what I like to watch, and generally what I spend a lot of time thinking about. It’s not only difficult for me to write, but I also don’t have a lot of experience in the area, so I don’t know a lot about it.

I’ve only been with and still with one person, ever in my life. I was in my late twenties or so when that happened. And it wasn’t adherence to strict religious practices that got me there, in fact, I am all about premarital sex and experimentation. You have two or more consenting adults who aren’t harming anyone, have at it. Skies the limit.

No, the chronic singleness of my youth wasn’t my looks, I had plenty of people interested, nor my social skills, I always had a lot of friends. It was my complete utter cluelessness of societal norms and more importantly body language. See, in American culture, around the time I was coming of age, the man was expected to make the first move. Women were shamed if they went out on a limb. But I’m a caring guy who cares about consent, so I needed a clear sign that the person of my interest wanted me to do what I wanted to do and they were shamed by society if they were too clear on their signs.

The result was a lot of girlfriends that I never had. For example, there was this girl I really liked, and she came to a party at my house with a cooler full of jungle juice (sorry dad). She pulled me away from the party to teach her to play guitar, so you know what I did? I taught her to play guitar! Bless her, she didn’t give up, she pulled me away again, this time to the basement where no one else was to play Legos. You wanna know what we did? We played Legos! She really tried that night, and I was so enamored with her I was asking my friends if they thought she liked me.

Turns out she did and well, I kinda missed my chance. She wasn’t the only one over the years, a Australian exchange student who was way hot and wanted to drive alone with me to the place we were going practically teed up a date for me, by saying “I really want to see the Blair Witch project” (which was playing that weekend) and I said that “I do too” (then thought to myself it sure would be swell to see it with her). A girl took me to her dorm where she “would do anything I wanted” (her words not mine). I asked her to straighten my hair, and she straightened my hair. Yes, I was that dumb. I had no clue that when a girl liked me, she touched me, or when a girl asked me to her dorm room where I could do anything, it wasn’t for hair care advice.

There was a girl who took me to the movies on my birthday and kept grabbing my arm, and then later that night at the party, when I was clearly giving her the vibes that I don’t like her (when I was more the vibes, I really like her and wish that I had some clear sign or perhaps verbal instructions about what to do next), she ended up hooking up with my friend. She later set fire to my friend’s bed, so maybe that was a close call on that one.

The point is romance and Aaron, at least in my early days was like oil and water, they weren’t a good match. It wasn’t till I married a romance novelist that I started learning about how this lack of understanding about body language, society expectations, and general cluelessness on my part really spoiled by youthful years. When my wife said, “yeah girls just sort of hang around the person they like hoping for something to happen,” I suddenly realized how my youth went so wonderfully disastrously wrong.

I mean if there was a unit in health class that wasn’t about what happens when a penis ejaculates (trust me, men figure this one out pretty early in life) or women’s ovulation, but actually said things like. How do you know if a girl likes you? They hang around, they find excuses to touch you, etc. My youth would have been very very different.

Even in my early twenties, when I was getting more the hang of it, I overcompensated for my deficit and tried to plant kisses because I figured that’s what I was doing wrong. I remember asking out a girl from class, she said yes, and the next day, I overheard her and her friend talking. When asked how the date went, she replied, “It was good but I think he wanted a little too much.” I was super confused at that point in my life because I really didn’t know what to do. 

I also even completely failed to read the situation sometimes. There was this one time, at a hotel party (sorry Marriott). We used to rent hotel rooms for the night, invite all our college friends to party with us, sometimes it would move to the pool. Anyway, it was a mixed group of genders, mostly theatre folks, and they were drunk. I had invited this girl to the party who I liked and we had spent a lot of time after class talking.

Anyway, the mixed gender group, (I have to remind you for what comes next) decided that they wanted to watch porn on the TV. Bear in mind they weren’t having an orgy. Just college kids, watching porn and drinking in a hotel room (like you do). I was a little nervous about how it would look to this girl that I really didn’t know that well, and I also was having horrible luck with women.

My friends who were supportive of me and my female problems, thought the best solution was for them to close the door to the bedroom (it was a suite with a bedroom and tiny living room) so they can watch porn and not creep out this girl. Remember, I’m the guy who really doesn’t want too much, in fact I really didn’t know what I wanted at the time. I really just wanted to go out on dates with women to see if I liked them but it seemed like some mysterious force that everyone knew about but me.

Anyway, she showed up, and it was just me making awkward conversation because there were clearly sex noises coming from the other room with the closed door. Rather than explain or just fucking open the door and introduce her to my friends, I just sort of got paralyzed with fear and self-doubt because literally nothing I did to attract women up to that point ever worked. And here’s the funny point of that story. One of my friends, a woman, who grew up in a strict Christian town in Texas, came out of the room with disheveled hair and apologized to her and said, “I’m not normally like this.” The funny part is my friend was referencing the fact that she was drinking, because she normally didn’t drink. But to the person going into this creepy guy’s hotel room with sex noises coming from the back, I imagine it took on a different tonal quality. As any woman in her right mind would do, the girl I was interested in got the hell out of that hotel room, and I never heard from her again. Maybe add reading the room to the health class curriculum.

The funny thing is my no sex till my late twenties was self-imposed. There were men and women both who were pretty direct and wanted to go there. I also one time, was offered to go live in a porn stars house that was connected to webcams that was going to be sort of a subscription service where the people who lived there did things with each other and people got to watch. I declined, not for any moral objections, consenting adults, no harm, have at it!

But it was more that I didn’t want my first time to be with somebody I didn’t like. I wanted it to be with a proper girlfriend, one who went out on dates, and we spent some time getting to know each other before going there. I’m glad I waited, because I’m happy now. I couldn’t have picked a better life partner. But sometimes I wish I had a little more experience because maybe I would have more romance in my novels. People like those things, so in effort to write more romance, The Golden Assault Rifle and Other Weapons of Mass Destruction has some romance in it. And one of these days, I plan to write Jenny’s backstory novels. Those I plan to be a full on romantasy, but until then. There’s going to be a little more spice in my books.

On the note of spice, Maxi hooks up with someone in Book 2 of Office Maxi, but I’m not telling who. You’ll just have to read it.

Books to Consider

Will Toby find a weapon that can save all Earth and Carnt?

Ready The Golden Assault Rifle today!

Seven years ago, a Paladin married a Necromancer. It didn’t seem like a big deal back then, seeing as the world was ending.

Read Paladin and Necromancer today!

In this tale of space opera and cosmic adventure, the Ambassador of a mysterious and ancient family must forge a path through chaos to overcome the terrible enemies that desire humanity’s destruction.

Read The Survivors today!

Can a humble Ad-Man from Knuckleville, USA, beat William Shakespeare and Marie Curie in a battle of minds?

Read Ad Man, Ad Astra today!

Welcome to The Galaxy of Comedy! 530+ pages. 90,000 Words. Endless Laughter.

Read The Galaxy of Comedy today!

As a rising actor, Kanin's body is his career. His identity. His life. All that is taken from him when he dies and is reborn as a bottle of ink.

Read Water Kanin today!

As torn petals of a rose fall, a hero must rise in a race against destiny.

Read Wedding of the Torn Rose today!

Imagine if “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy” ran off with a Mills & Boon paperback, detoured through Discworld, picked up a battered Lonely Planet from 1998, and tuned in to The Spice Girls on the way.

Read Cyberchicks in Love today!