I was on the train back from a useless meeting in town, feet up on the opposite seat like I always do when the carriage is half empty, when the woman across from me pulled out this massive paperback with a dragon on the cover and a bloke with his shirt half off. She was properly lost in it, biting her lip, turning pages so fast I thought she might give herself a paper cut. I recognised the look. I have worn that same face more times than I care to admit lately.
Romantasy. That is what they call it now. Romantic fantasy. Worlds where the men actually listen, where they remember what you said three chapters ago, where they fight for you without turning it into a performance. I used to roll my eyes at that stuff. Proper journalist, me. Give me a grim investigation or a fiery thread about unpaid labour any day. Then 2026 dating happened and suddenly those books started feeling less like escapism and more like a necessary survival kit.
Dating right now is bleak, babes. Proper bleak. The apps are a graveyard of the same five messages recycled by men who think “hey” counts as effort. You match, you chat, you meet, and within twenty minutes you realise he has not asked you a single question that was not about himself. He talks over you. He checks his phone while you are mid-sentence. He assumes you will laugh at his jokes even when they are not funny. Then he ghosts you after one pint because you did not immediately agree to go back to his. I have been there more times than I can count this year. Each time I come home, kick off my shoes, grab the vape, and wonder why I keep putting myself through it.
The Coven group chat has become a running commentary on this exact disaster. Voice notes at midnight about another date that went nowhere. Screenshots of messages that start promising and end with “busy this week” that never turns into an actual plan. We used to joke about it. Now it just feels tired. Young women are opting out in droves and I do not blame them one bit. The data backs it up. We are the most progressive demographic and also the most exhausted by the whole performance. Why keep showing up when the other side treats it like a game they already won?
That is when the books started creeping in. I picked one up on a whim after seeing it everywhere on my feed. A woman who can breathe fire, a man who actually pays attention to what she needs instead of what he wants. I told myself it was research. Content for a thread maybe. Then I finished it in two nights and immediately bought the next one. Then the one after that. I started reading them on the train, in the bath, in bed with the curtains half drawn and my blue nails tapping the screen. The Coven noticed. “You alright, hun? You have gone quiet.” I sent them a voice note explaining I was busy being emotionally wrecked by a fictional prince who remembered his girl’s favourite tea.
It sounds daft when I say it out loud. But here is the thing. These stories are written in the female gaze. The men in them notice the small stuff. They listen when she talks about her day. They do not interrupt. They do not make everything about their own pleasure or their own ego. They show up. Consistently. Without being asked twice. In the real world that feels like science fiction. I have dated men who forgot my name after the third date. I have sat across tables from blokes who spent forty minutes explaining their gym routine while I nodded and wondered if I could leave without being rude.
The contrast is sharp enough to sting. In the books the tension builds because both people actually want each other to be happy. In real life the tension builds because one person is doing all the work and the other is waiting to see what they can get away with. I caught myself comparing. That date last month where he talked over me for an hour? The fictional version would have asked follow-up questions and then suggested we go somewhere quieter so he could hear me properly. I laughed out loud on the train when I realised I was grading real men against made-up ones. An older woman a few seats down gave me a look. I just shrugged and kept reading.
It is not that I want a dragon or a magical castle. I want the listening. I want the part where he notices she is tired and makes her tea without being told. I want the part where he remembers the throwaway comment she made two weeks ago and brings it up later because it mattered to her. That should not feel revolutionary. Yet here we are in 2026 and it does. The books give us that version of a man and then send us back out into a world that still thinks asking “what do you do?” counts as deep conversation.
I started noticing it in the smallest places. Waiting for the kettle in my Hackney kitchen, vape in one hand, I would think about a scene I had just read and feel this ridiculous ache. Not for the plot. For the attention. The focused, unhurried attention that real dates so rarely deliver. I mentioned it to mum on the phone after a Sunday roast. She snorted. “Men have always been like that, love. Your dad still talks over me after thirty years.” She said it like it was weather. Inevitable. I hung up and went back to my book because at least in those pages someone was trying.
The Coven has mixed feelings. Some of them think I am wasting time on fairy porn. Others have started reading too and now we swap recommendations like contraband. We talk about the tropes. The slow burn. The found family. The way the female characters get to be powerful and still wanted. That last one hits different. In real dating you often feel like you have to shrink a bit to be palatable. Laugh at the joke even if it is not funny. Soften your opinions so he does not call you intense. In the books they do not shrink. They take up space and the men adjust around them instead of the other way round.
I have tried to bring some of that energy into actual dates. Asked better questions. Held eye contact. Refused to fill every silence. It does not always work. Last week a bloke told me I was “a lot” after I talked about a piece I was writing. I went home, made tea, and opened the next chapter where the male lead tells the heroine her fire is the best thing about her. I know it is fiction. I know the author is probably a woman who has also had enough. That is why it works. These books are written by people who have sat through the same disappointing dates and decided to invent something better.
The escape is not just about romance. It is about being seen. Properly seen. In a year where everything feels loud and rushed and transactional, these stories slow down. They linger on conversations. They let the characters actually talk instead of performing. I find myself reading the same page twice because I want to stay in that moment a little longer. Then I look up and remember I am on the District line with my feet on the seat and a half-eaten wrap in my lap and the real world is still waiting.
People say it is just fantasy. Harmless. But I think it is doing more than that. It is showing a generation of women what it could look like if the other person actually met us halfway. Not perfectly. Not with magic. Just with effort and attention and the willingness to listen without waiting for their turn to speak. That should not feel like a high bar. Yet every time I close one of these books I feel the gap between the page and the pavement more clearly.
I am not giving up on dating. I am just done pretending the current version is good enough. The books have made that harder to ignore. They have also made the waiting slightly more bearable. When the next disappointing message lands I can put the phone down, pick up the next chapter, and remind myself that somewhere, at least on paper, there are men who remember the small things. That is not nothing. It is a start.
The woman on the train finished her book just as we pulled into my stop. She looked up, caught me watching, and smiled like we were in on the same secret. I smiled back. Then I got off, walked home in the rain, and opened my own copy as soon as I kicked my shoes off. The kettle went on. The vape came out. And for a little while the real world could wait.