Good readers, is it my responsibility to write a story than embraces my belief (or lack of belief) in something or other? Do I have to agree with my own moral?

I’m working on this story. It’s a love story (don’t judge, okay?),  and it’s got me thinking.

Here’s what I don’t believe:
I don’t believe in love at first sight, soul mates, or happily ever after. Despite my own situation, I don’t think that monogamy is “right,” and I definitely don’t think that marriage is necessary. (And while engagements are something to celebrate, I also don’t think they’re an “achievement.” I would have liked people to show half as much enthusiasm at me finishing either of my degrees as they did at JT and I agreeing to continue in our successful co-habiting while wearing rings.)

Here’s what I do believe:
Relationships, like anything worth winning and worth keeping, require effort, energy, and (borrowing from Moody) constant vigilance. Most of all, I believe they require a choice — a choice you consciously make on a regular basis to be the best partner you can, to create the relationship that’s most healthy and fulfilling for you both (or all, depending on your situation).

But my story is operating on a premise in which I don’t believe – one of the aforementioned. I’m writing it because it makes me feel that soppy hopefulness that love stories should make you feel, but I fear I’m perpetuating a myth that Disney implanted within every child of my generation and which I can point to as a direct cause of the singleness of at least a couple of my friends — the myth of “meant to be.”

If I have convictions, I have a duty, at least to myself, to find a way to make my “unromantic” notions of love into something aspirational. I’ll have to learn to write the kind of love I believe in, even if that means shelving that soppy hopeful feeling for a while.