Strong Women need Strong Men

public domain photo

I have the personality of a blaze orange locomotive; loud, bright, messy, headed-in-that-direction-damnit, and towing a lot of baggage.

That means I'm apt to run you over - like the proverbial cow by the Lonesome Pine that my grandmother used to sing about - if I've got my eyes set on a goal. (It also means that I have a tendency to get derailed.)

Now, why am I talking about my dominating, obnoxious personality?

Yesterday I won this contest; in order to do so, we had to tweet about what we liked about strong heroines.

I tweeted this: #SiranthaJax A strong heroine always has to have a man, not a boy, to be equal to her awesomeness. #equalpartners! @TheaHarrison

I do truly believe that. I know it. Because I'm a strong woman. I know I've been over-fucking-whelming to some of the "nicer" guys in my life.

My husband... is not a nice man. Don't get me wrong, I love him, but nice is not an adjective I'd use to describe him. He's driven. He's obnoxious. And sometimes he's completely fucking clueless. He's very alpha male. He likes to be at the top of the pecking order in a social situation. Better than YOU! (Why yes, people who think they're better are annoying to those of us who ARE!) He also takes pride in doing a good job (not that I don't like to do a good job, mind, but I've never considered corporate America and their obsession with meetings and widgets to be anything worth taking seriously enough to put the effort into a good job. But he does! He works HARD at his cubical hive job. weirdo.) and has a never-quit attitude that sometimes makes me roll my eyes. He's also high-strung and temperamental.

Which is to say; perfect. For me. He'd steam-roller a nice girl.

He is my match, my mate, and my partner in crime. He's better with computers. I can actually cook a meal. He beats my ass at chess and I wipe the floor with him in card games. We're both wickedly intelligent, sarcastic, and occasionally belligerent.

Neither of us is afraid to scream at the other.

I read a lot of romance novels; one of the things I hate more than anything - inevitably I want to transport into the book and slap the HELL out of the heroine whenever this happens - is when the alpha male gets all "you can't ever, ever put yourself at risk! never ever because I would die if something happened to you, so promise me you'll let me put you on the shelf and protect you..."

And inevitably, the heroine is soooooo overwhelmed that he wuuuuuvs her that she bats her eyelashes and agrees to it.

GYAH!

No.

Fuck. No.

Fuck you!

Look, you either love me, with all my bad habits, dangerous passions, and spark of life, or you love an idea.

I have ideas. I am NOT an idea.

(Anyway, I won one of the book packages and not the Ann Aguirre book. So I guess I'll just have to buy that one on my own... me and a girlfriend were just talking about sci-fi romances recently...)