Hey, guys. It's Addy! Remember me? Yeah. I disappeared off the face of the earth for a while, but I have returned. Long story short, my best friend came back from a tour of duty overseas and I went and lived with him for the summer. And then he left to do a second tour and it's one of those deployments where I don't know where he is or when he'll be back and I haven't even heard from him in two weeks. But it'll all be okay. I know it will. And in the meantime, you guys can keep me company even though I'm horrible and have neglected you the whole summer.
And now that the horrible, sad explanation and apology are out of the way, let's get to the rant, which I'm assuming is why y'all are here anyway.
Guys, I think we might have found something I haven't done: date my boss. However, my best friend was technically my manager for a while, so count it if you like, but I don't want to. This tally is making me look bad.
So, without further ado, the list of The Young CEO/Billionaire
Now, I had to do some research for this rant, since I don't actually read these stories, but they continue to be popular. So for research, I skimmed through eight of the top ones (and I won't mention names or even where I found them, because we're not here to bash specific people. I'm sure the authors are lovely people).
These are the problems I found (and some of my notoriously bad tips):
1. He usually stalks her
This happens a lot and I don't even think people realize that's what's going on. Some people don't have a problem at all with it, but I have a huge problem with someone keeping tabs on me at all hours of the day like these billionaire/ CEO guys do. In at least three of the stories I skimmed, he buys the MC a car and then keeps rack of all her movements.
If she takes a day off, it's only when he knows about it (if he isn't with her that day anyway). When I take a day off work, I tell them whether it's medical or personal. They don't have to know exactly why. There are laws saying they don't have to know why.
She stops hanging out with her friends. He meets her family in no time (and she rarely meets his, but we'll get into that later). In at least one that I read, he goes through her employment information to find out personal things about her (like her birthday, address, and even emergency contacts). Yes, bosses are allowed to know that. No, they are not allowed to use that personal information for their own benefit.
My point here: you may think it's a guy being sweet and "checking up" on the sweet little innocent MC, but it's abuse. Seriously. If she's not allowed to go anywhere or do anything without him knowing about it, that's considered abuse. It's fine if they have an open relationship without any secrets. But it should be through the consent of both him and her. It can't be that he's tracking the mileage on her car, tapping into her cellphones so he can find her at a bar (inevitably just to show up right before she's about to be raped so he can save the day).
The suggestion I have for this type of thing: don't make him stalk her. I've had stalkers (three if you want to be precise) and it was not fun. They've broken into my house before and were waiting for me when I got off work (which one of these CEOs did in one of the stories I skimmed) and do you know what I did? I didn't just argue with them and tell them I'm a strong, independent girl, then take a shower with them. I called the fucking police. Because that shit is not okay. You do not come into my home without an invitation.
2. Kidnapping is okay
I didn't read them (obviously), but I ran across three (yeah, that's right. One, two, three) stories that advertised the female MC being kidnapped by the boss/ CEO. And they were marked as romance. And that's just not okay. Every time I (or even other people) bring up this HUGE problem of people falling in love with their captors, someone always has to bring up Stolkholm Syndrome. Do you people not realize what a cop-out that is?
Fear. I promise you, fear is the number one motivator in situations like that. It really, truly is and the sooner you realize that, the sooner you'll have a story worth reading that doesn't hide behind these weird, rare, terribly misunderstood concepts.
Long story short: kidnapping will never be okay. Ever. Don't even try to justify it.
3. The "deal"/ "match"
This one I came across quite a bit, and I have to say, it's not the worst idea anyone has ever come up with. I could almost see it being plausible for there to be a young CEO wanting to take over his parents' company, but they would rather he settle down. Yeah, I can see some legal issues maybe, but it's not the worst idea ever. Not a great one, but not a horrible one.
What makes it bad is the fact that it's everywhere, and there are so many better ways to go about this. There are much better conflicts than an arranged marriage in these situations. Mostly it comes about because someone wants to have a young, hot CEO, because we all know CEOs are typically old white dudes. But here's the deal: do you really want to force a marriage when divorce is so popular and prenups aren't? No. You don't. You'll lose half your fortune really quickly that way.
If you want a young, super hot, super rich guy, why does he have to directly be the CEO? Why can't he be the heir to a fortune-500? Why can't he be a step down from the top? Because for one, not having all the power would make him a much more interesting character and put a lot more at stake for both characters, and 2. I've always enjoyed those stories for some reason. Like, the President's Daughter types of things. I like those. I didn't find enough of those. So that's my suggestion, unless I overlooked a shit ton and it's actually already a cliché. It's up to you guys to inform me, cool? Cool.
4. She was abused and he saves the day
Okay, do you know how many of those "I was walking down a dark alley when I was attacked and almost raped by strangers when handsome, young CEO came and saved the day" scenerios I read? Too many. Waaaaay too many. And that's not okay.
I say it all the time, but r*pe is not something you just throw in a story for instant drama. Not unless you want to deal with the reprecussions (or have a character that doesn't want to deal with the effects because that's an interesting conflict too).
That or she comes from an abusive home and he shows her that not all men are bad or he literally rescues her from the situation. Guys, it has been my experience that if you're in an abusive situation, adding another person to the equation doesn't help. It makes things worse. If daddy is beating his daughter, finding out she has a boyfriend isn't going to save her. It's going to make him angry. And angry people hit a lot harder than people who are bored.
Also, a lot of people coming from abusive backgrounds typically suffer from low self esteem. And while that makes for very annoying, pity party characterization, it also makes for harsh reality. And it makes relationships incredibly difficult on any level.
For the longest time, people thought my best friend was the one who was abusive to me, because of how much I said thank you and sorry. Supposedly that's a tell-tale sign, but the problem was, I said it to everyone, not just him, so that was confusing for people who like to play superhero. And I get stuck in what we've always called "sorry" loops, where I answer everything with sorry. Those always annoyed him.
And he was used to it, because we grew up together, but I had boyfriends that didn't understand that my mood changed from day to day and sometimes it was okay if they held my hand or touched my arm, but some days it wasn't. Like, my best friend always knew to ask before he did something, or immediately after to make sure it wasn't bothering me.
And he also was used to me constantly asking him the same questions over and over (like "are you mad?" or "does that bother you?"), but a lot of people that aren't used to that kind of insecurity have had a hard time understanding that. I never see that in these stories and I think I'd like to. I mean, if y'all are gonna use the abuse excuse.
But my point in all of this is that these characters show no signs of abuse. It's literally my life sucks until I start dating a guy with a private jet and suddenly everything is fine. It's not that easy. If you want it to be that easy, you probably shouldn't use the abusive background. That's probably a horrible idea.
And those are my points, but I will end the rant on this point: If you want a young CEO, you have to realize that stock holders and board members are going to have a huge influence. CEO's aren't the end all be all, okay? Maybe think about the limitations. Not just one single person makes a company run. It takes a lot of people.
And that's all. But you guys always call me out when I don't end with stories. So I'm trying to think of a story now, but all I can think about was the day my best friend came back from his first tour and it has nothing to do with this rant, but whatever. We'll tell it.
So, I was supposed to pick him up at the airport, right? And he was flying into the city where his place is, so all his friends and coworkers wanted to come with. And I was with both his brothers and his dad, because they hadn't seen him since before he was deployed.
So anyway, he had to catch one flight, then had less than an hour to catch another one. And of course, as usual, his first flight got delayed, and it was one of those things where there was no chance in hell he was making the second flight, but we were all hanging out at the airport, hoping by some off chance a miracle would happen and he'd make the second flight bringing him to us. But of course that didn't happened.
He called while he was at the other airport and said he missed his flight by ten minutes. So we were all bummed, but he said he was going to try to catch another one. Originally, he was supposed to be back at seven, but he missed that flight. If he managed to get on the second flight, he would be back at two am. But he wasn't sure if he was going to make that one or if they had any tickets or anything, but he knew he had to go right then. And his phone died and his charger wasn't working, so everyone was disappointed and we didn't know if he was getting that flight or another one in the morning, so all our friends went home.
But I decided to stay at the airport, because it felt wrong to just leave when I went there to get him. I wasn't just going to walk out without him. So I stayed there with his brothers and his dad. But we were all really sure he wasn't going to make the other flight, because 1. He would've called from a payphone to tell us whether or not he got the ticket and 2. He would've had to pretty much run from one end of the airport to the other in two minutes and he's in good shape, but that sounded extreme.
Worst case scenario, he'd be back at noon the next day anyway, so we were all four content to stay until noon. Going back to his place without him just felt so wrong and for some reason his little brother had always wanted to sleep in an airport (don't ask). So around twelve, the airport is pretty dead and his family is all passed out, dead asleep and I'm just hanging out in all my insomniac glory.
And I decide I need to walk around the airport (because at this point, there are pretty much janitors and I felt it was fairly safe). By then I had convinced myself that he wasn't on it, because I didn't want to get my hopes up and it was a complete long shot anyway.
So I'm meandering around all over the airport, checking out the dryers in the bathroom (because they're industrial as fuck). I counted all the shiny steps down to the baggage claim. Then I counted them back up to upper floor. And I decide to walk over to the big glass windows they have where you can look out on the runway, because I wanted to see the pretty lights.
And I'm walking down the length of it, when I see the relfection of someone walking up the stairs on the other side of the upper floor. And I'm trying to be all casual, because I don't like eye contact, especially alone in an airport. So I'm trying to do that creepy thing where you act like you're playing with your hair, and you throw it over your shoulder, but really you're trying to look at the person out of the corner of your eye.
But I finally give that up and just casually turn to look and I swear to God my heart stopped and I've never ran so fast, like my feet hardly touched the ground and when I ran into him, I almost knocked him over and we almost fell down the stairs it was one of the best moments of my life. It was awesome. And then I got to take him back to his family and the look on his little brother's face when he woke him up was one of those things that make your heart so happy you cry.
And that's my heartwarming story. There you go. Boom. So in the comments, tell me what you think about CEO stories. Or tell me a heartwarming story. I could always use something to make me feel warm and fuzzy inside.