Tag: Lauren

Beautiful characters

Published on by Jaye1 Comment

Have you ever noticed how often the characters of our novels and stories are beautiful?

What I find fascinating is, sometimes, they aren’t or at least aren’t explicitly described as such – we merely assume they are.

I think this has to do with escapism and romantic notions.

Too, I think it’s down to perceptions.

Now, it’s no good talking about the ruggedly handsome specimen of masculine archtypicality John Carter, Warlord of Barsoom.  I suppose there are reasons we could, he’s described in pretty fair detail so we could make and reject all manner of philosophical debates about it; especially since it’s never explicitly stated he’s supposed to be remarkably handsome, only the kind of handsome that comes from being a healthy and fit human with self-confidence.

I’m going to use my own writing for this, though, because they’re my characters so I know them intimately.

Sally, Lauren, their friends:  are they beautiful?

Oh sure, Sally describes Lauren as quite gorgeous repeatedly.  Thing is … is she a reliable narrator?  Most descriptions wherein Lauren is any remarkable beauty are (… wait for it …) from Salencia’s point of view!  Sally’s biased.  For one, Sally loves redheads.  Why?  Dunno, she just does.  My high school girlfriend was a redhead, and I’ll admit she had a certain charm, and my wife certainly loves my red hair, and for that matter a lot of women I know (men too, come to think of it) … I suppose it’s something about redheads.  Still, no one else describes her as beautiful beyond circumstantial points or when talking about her spirit and personality.

Lauren is not ugly, I would imagine, no.  Simply put it is hard not to be attractive when you are healthy, fit, and take a certain measure of care in your choice of hair and clothes not in regards to societal expectations, but rather in regard to what suit both your body and your personality.  Suffice to say, I do not have either the face shape nor personality to pull off a Pat Benatar or Joan Jett look, on me it’d be unattractive whereas on them it’s bloody stunning.  She is what she is, a petite redhead with freckles, and a demure hippie fashion sense, and the musculature of a dancer; she’s healthy, she’s trim … and it’s important to note that healthy is specific.  You can work out to the point of unhealthy, all muscle is not actually any better than all fat with regards to your overall health.  If coppertopped pygmies are attractive to you, then yes, Lauren is quite beautiful, but if you’re not into that then she generally falls into the realm of “cute”.

Sally, on the flip side, does trend toward more universally beautiful.  To each her own, not everyone digs the exotic skin tone, dark hair, etc.  But on general terms, while Lauren probably wouldn’t have much of a modelling career, Sally could.  She’s something between 5′ 6″ and 5′ 8″ (167 – 173 cm), proportioned like Shakira, with lots of leg, and features reminiscent of Aishwarya Rai (especially with regards to her hair); Sally could model pretty successfully (well, if she had the personality for it).

The rest actually aren’t described.  They’re as pretty or ugly as you’re comfortable picturing.  Though from my point of view the characters are all fairly attractive in that generic way that comes from good health.

I mention this because it’s an odd criticism that comes up about fiction, that the characters shouldn’t always be so spectacularly stunning to look at.  On principle, I agree.  I mean, Bilbo Baggins isn’t supposed to be some playboy with all the lady hobbits fawning over him, and maybe that puts an important detail into his character.  I also agree that some fiction goes too far and … just peruse some of the not-so-good fanfiction some time for easy access to an example (though the gods know there’s plenty of it on store shelves too).  Romances … okay, they’re given some leeway, for one thing they’re probably narrated from a POV that, like with Lauren, tends toward a bias, the rest is just tradition … for whatever reason, we’re happier with Westley and Buttercup than we are Miracle Max and his wife (whose name utterly escapes me now, even though she has one in the novel).  Still, I think, if we look strictly at the text as given, we find more cases where the characters aren’t especially pretty nor especially ugly; generally the heroes are going to need to be healthy and fit, so a measure of attraction comes with that, but beyond it … I think a lot of character beauty is perceived, not narrated.

Verity Price, for example?  Is she a Sally or is she a Lauren?  She’s in really good shape, and depending how you like the look she cultivates, you could probably go either way; but the real point is … nothing explicitly says one way or the other.  My vote is more of a Lauren.  Dominic, however, is more of a Sally.  He’s got the muscular Fabio-esque euro-hottie vibe turned up to 11 … well, until he talks, anyway.  (see: Discount Armageddon and Midnight Blue Light Special.)

Now, to prove that it’s not always just the men who get to be the supreme hotties.  Let’s look at Barsoom.  Dejah Thoris is, admittedly, not explicitly described possibly to keep her look more timeless, since within Burroughs’ lifetime the epitome of feminine beauty had shifted a few times before he wrote that book.  Still we’re given enough to agree with his assessment, and little enough to fill in the blanks with our own opinion – in short, Dejah Thoris is the most beautiful woman on Mars both because you’re told she is, and because she’s put together in the right way to somewhat ensure this.  Our good gentleman, John Carter, on the other hand is described in detail.  Yeah, he’s got a lot of dashing hero tropes, so he’s going to be handsome in that fit fighting man kind of way; but he’s also described in rather generic terms.  He could be any of our brothers, fathers, sons, etc. if they only had spent so much of a lifetime relying on the strength of both their wit and arms to keep them alive.

What’s the point?  Why does it matter?

I’ve wondered that too, somewhat.  Why should it matter if there’re characters with crooked teeth, or characters with perfect teeth?  Both sides, in other words, confuse me.  Why are describing teeth unless it’s important?  At that point, they’re perfect or crooked based on the dictates of the character.  And, I’m sorry, but some people’s teeth grow in quite neatly without orthodontia (which, I might add has existed since the mummies were still being entombed in Egypt) so a pre-modern character can still have perfect teeth (just now you’ve a reason to mention it).

I don’t understand this idea of forcing “unattractiveness” on characters as some kind of Thing.  This idea that making all the characters flawless beautifies as some kind of Thing is equally strange.  Why can’t we just make characters people?  More importantly, why do we need to describe the characters in such tedious detail that the only explanation of why would have to be that we’re jumping up and down going “look! not conforming to unattainable standards of beauty!” or “lookit how pretty (s)he is!!”.  Oh, yeah, sometimes you gotta if the bloody point is how (un)attractive the character is.  But must you do so for everyone?

I’m starting to sidetrack myself with rambling.  Simply put:  who cares?!  Why should we care?  Lauren an Sally only need to be pretty to each other everything else is just decoration; Sally being so remarkably pretty was because that’s what she looked like when she popped into my head as a character … maybe I’d been looking at a lot of Bollywood and Tamil actresses at the time or something.  I mean, I don’t think it’s good writing to have every character be this flawless thing nor the opposite.  I also just don’t agree with everyone thinking someone is oh-so-gorgeous/ugly.  Even people who are considered “classic beauties”, in other words they fit the biological mould of healthy, good genes, fertility/virility, etc. like Marilyn Monroe, Aishwarya Rai, Chris Hemsworth, and Clark Gable aren’t universally adored as beautiful.  Some people really just have a thing for this hair colour or that, for darker or ligher skin, etc.  Also, Rodney Dangerfield was nothing much to look at, but as I recall the man was married and had children … clearly someone dug something about him, probably even found him attractive.

“Darling, did it ever occur to you that, if Salencia had a six foot nose covered in warts and no teeth and a squint and a great big hairy mole in the middle of her forehead, if you loved her then you’d still see her as beautiful? You’d see past the … mess to the person and heart inside and suddenly … well, very few happy and loving couples don’t think one another beautiful, quirky old songs notwithstanding.”

Excerpt From: Jaye Em Edgecliff. “Love or Lust.” iBooks. https://itun.es/us/0Qu1N.l

Extremism.  It’s rarely good; not never or that’d be a paradox and therefore nonsense.  We should stop criticising works for having characters who are beautiful or not, and start looking at criticising the works that put big flashing neon signs over it needlessly.  Not even for the act itself, but rather for the sloppiness and laziness that it embodies.  Believe me, I’ve rarely met a story that was explicitly trying to make people stunning or hideous that wasn’t just all ’round badly written.  When telling a story it’s down to that balance thing.  Like Show vs Tell – sometimes you should have one, sometimes the other, generally a bit of an ambiguous blending of the two.

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Which character is the author?

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Among the many odd questions an author is often asked one of the oddest is some variation on “Which character is you?”

It’s so very strange to be asked this – because depending how you look at it, either all of them or none; unless, of course, I happen to have a character who is a shy author named Jaye Em Edgecliff that lives in Georgia and writes teen fiction.

On the one hand, they are all me.  They do, after all, come from my own hand and head.  They may be inspired by any number of things from notions and ideas to other fictional characters I encounter in my reading or watching a movie to real people I’ve met or seen or read about.  In the end, though, they’re my perceptions of those people.  Even if we assume the ficton view of reality wherein all of these characters are very much alive and real somewhere, it doesn’t change that the story on the page is my perception of those very real people.  By that measure, all the characters are me.  They’re all my perceptions of right and wrong, my perceptions of beauty and kindness, my perceptions of humour and sorrow, and so on.  How I narrate the story is going to highlight those perceptions – they’ll paint who is or isn’t supposed to be a villain and who is or isn’t in love with whom.

More accurately, though, they are a part of me.  My own dreams, desires, thoughts, feelings, experiences, darknesses, prejudices, anger, sorrow, laughter, and all go into shaping the words on the page and little pieces of those go into each little person in the dreamworld of the fiction.

In that sense – unless one of the characters shares my name, my description, etc. none of them are me.  I don’t share a religion with any one of my characters; my political and philosophical viewpoints do not perfectly align with any one of my characters.  Yvette and Lucas like eggplant, Lauren does not – neither do I, but that doesn’t make Lauren me.

I’m not sure what the point in asking such a question is.  I have written characters who share nothing with me, personally, beyond morphologically – they’re human shaped, not even actually human, just shaped this way.  I often write characters with different beliefs, different outlooks on life and everything else; major and minor characters, protagonist and antagonist alike.  I assume that this is mostly true of many authors.  I suppose we all, somewhere along the way, do write our views and thoughts into things.  This character or that one will say some brilliant line that perfectly parallels our own views.  Sometimes, if we feel strongly on a matter, we might write a protagonist who shares fully in our outlooks and thoughts; still, I do not believe that means the characters are ourselves – I’ve yet to meet any author who is writing purely from personal experience, using the Dragnet names changed and slightly tweaked reality to write their novels.  Oh, they exist, certainly, but I believe there’s a good reason they’re rare:  most people who live that interesting a life write memoirs, not novels.

So, in answer to the question – no, neither Lauren, Sally, Yvette, Lucas, Allison, Sarah, Lisa, Lucy, nor anyone else you have met or ever will meet in my stories is me, unless there’s ever a quiet author named Jaye … then maybe, but she’s shy and avoids the narrative camera like it’s carrying a plague.

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Now & Forever ABCs (Zach)

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Zach Christopher Archer

10 April 1994
Roman Catholic

Zach is a writer and reader.  Primarily he writes science fiction adventures, but he also enjoys westerns, mysteries, and paranormal thrillers — and writes in all of these.  He hopes to make a living at this, and so is looking to earn a Journalism degree so he can get a day job writing for a magazine or newspaper while he works on his novels and short stories.

He’s lived his whole life behind and to one side of Lauren’s backyard, so the two families have known each other for years, and the two kids — only a couple of years apart — have always been friends, reinforced by the fact that Lauren is also friends, from church, with Zach’s cousin Allison.

His tastes and interests vary.  He likes art, history, books, movies, music — anything that might reflect life.  Jazz is his favourite music, especially improvisational jazz, as he finds it to be the most deeply personal and emotional of musics; through this love of jazz he took up playing saxophone, and has both a baritone and tenor sax which he plays for himself, as a stand-in for a few friends who have small time jazz bands, and in Immaculate Conception’s Jazz Ensemble class.  He has many friends through his mother, who is a professional drummer, in the local music scene and so has spent much of his life frequenting concerts and gigs of various sizes and calibres with her or them, and — now that he can drive — with himself.

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Now & Forever ABCs (Travis)

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My God, I can’t believe I forgot Travis.  Maybe I forgot Travis started with a T?

Travis Kaleo Puanani

20 May 1995
Agnostic

Travis’ parents met when his mother was stationed in Hawaii, where Travis was born.  The family moved back to her home in Washington when she left the Air Force.  Travis is the oldest of three children.

Travis tends to have a rather pervy sense of humour, make sexual innuendo out of anything and everything he can.  He’s actually a fairly shy, sweet guy when given a chance to prove it, however.

He has been dancing very nearly as long as Lauren, though he started with ballroom and jazz rather than ballet.  He loves dancing, even if he doesn’t love the perception, especially once he discovered a passion for ballet, it leaves so many people — including members of his own family — with.  Luckily Janet and he dating has done a little to dissuade those attitudes, and no one ever made much effort to bother him; Travis has been studying Taekwondo since he was six, and recently has taken a slight interest in Krav Maga.  Soon people learnt not to bother his friends who really are gay when, in middle school, some bullies decided to try to beat on Marcus, and Travis made them back down without ever actually hitting anyone, he just managed to convince them he could single-handedly send the lot of them to the emergency room.

Travis long ago, watching his mother and father, decided one thing for certain:  he’d never have a normal day job.  He saw them going to ordinary, mundane, nine-to-five work for a paycheque.  He promised himself that, one day, he’d make a living on a stage, on a screen, or in tournaments.  He wants excitement, energy, and to do work that makes him feel like he’s accomplished something.  Failing that, he says, he’ll join the French Foreign Legion or MI:6.

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Now & Forever ABCs (Sarah)

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I’m terribly sorry I didn’t get this posted yesterday, when I should have, but I was rather busy with work and pets while fending off a terrible migraine.  I’m better now and the workload isn’t as obscene so all should be well to wrap up the Ss, look for any more Ts, and so forth.

Sarah Esmerelda Theresa Boone

20 August 1996
Roman Catholic

Sarah is one of Lauren’s oldest friends; the two met while playing at the park together when they were three.

Sarah’s parents are corporate lawyers, something she finds horribly distasteful even if she does rather enjoy some of the benefits of the incredible salaries this provides them.  Especially she loves getting to ride in her father’s Ferrari.

Sarah herself is a bit of a whimsical child, and often comes off as barely much brighter than Allison though she is, quite possibly, the smartest one of the bunch.  Sarah just isn’t interested in school subjects.  She does well, she makes good grades, but she takes little interest in anything that isn’t her cheerleading as far as school goes.  For her it doesn’t matter how good or bad her grades are, so long as she gets the SAT or ACT scores to get into a decent school, and even if it does turn out to be important she has high enough grades she could jump several ranks just by deciding to do her homework more often.

Outside of her cheerleading, Sarah enjoys video games, books, movies, TV, and everything else you’d expect of a teenager.  She’s also deeply enamoured with the work of Mother Theresa, even taking Theresa as her Confirmation name, and while not seeming to apply herself very hard in school she is paying attention and learning — for the moment, at least, she hopes to become a doctor and work on The Africa Mercy hospital ship.

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Now & Forever ABCs (Nonnina)

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Rachele Carmen Agata Constellino née Gentile

5 March 1947
Roman Catholic

Rachele was born and raised in Agrigento, Sicily, Italy to a family that was not well off, but was well to-do enough that they always had plenty of good food, and had no trouble keeping clothes on their backs.

She was the second youngest of eight children, and the third — and youngest — daughter.  She is rather well educated, her father adamant that a good wife should also have a good mind, so made certain she got to  and did well in school and encouraging her to attend college when she was offered a scholarship to Università degli Studi Suor Orsola Benincasa in Naples.  There she studied Letters (Literature) and earned a degree as well as meeting a young fisherman’s son who was working in a coffee house while studying history at, in his words, L’Università della Biblioteca Civica (The University of the Public Library).  His name was Amadeo Constellino, a Corsican who’d come to the city to make his fortune.

Amadeo made a determined effort to win the affection and hand of the charming young Sicilian girl he’d met; and she was quite popular with the lads being both beautiful and an incomparable cook as well as, as her father had predicted, witty and intelligent … many a young man would try again harder to win her attentions after a sharp-tongued rebuke from her it making her that much more an alluring challenge.

Amadeo supplemented his pocketbook with busking in parks and on the street, being a remarkably good guitarist, even writing his own songs.  Rather than stubborn determination (because Rachele had turned down his first request to take the pretty college girl to a movie) he took a subtler approach:  not charging her for her orders at the little café, and by writing her a song which he convinced the owner of the shop (the eldest brother of one of Amadeo’s childhood friends) to let him perform the next time she came in.  She finally agreed to the movie.

The couple was married a year and a half later and went on to have five children.  She worked as a school teacher and he eventually found himself manager, then owner of the café.

Rachele has always been a strict and opinionated woman, sharp tongued and sharp witted she kept her family in line and got them all, even her carefree and religiously lackadaisical husband, to Mass regularly (and for both husband and children, frequent trips to the confessional — her children being a little much like Amadeo, at times).

When Amadeo died the couple had already been retired for a number of years, he having given the café over to a daughter-in-law, and she having earned her pension from the school.  In 2008 Rachele was widowed by Amadeo’s weakening heart finally giving up.

She does not approve of Sally’s sexuality, because she does so deeply love her grandchildren and she is concerned for the young girl’s soul.  She has long prayed that it was merely a childish phase that her granddaughter was going through and eventually would grow out of once she’d met a good man — after all, she loved and admired Amadeo, and is so very fond of so many of her uncles, her father, and her male cousins (Rachele having a vague notion that lesbians must, inherently, dislike men in general).  It was a shock to her when Sally told her about Lauren, but still she loved her Salencia and became so much more determined to pray for the girl — a good child, really, but clearly corrupted from living in that Godless country her daughter-in-law had dragged her son and grandchild to (she loves Zoë like a daughter, but considers the woman to be quite insane at times — a sentiment that Zoë is wont to agree with).

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Now & Forever ABCs (Marcus)

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Marcus Lee Jackson

5 February 1996
Discordian (Lapsed)

Marcus is a very flamboyant, and effervescent young man. He loves life, he loves to joke, and he loves confusing people.

He will happily inform anyone who cares to ask, and many who don’t, that yes — in fact — he is just as gay or more so than he acts, especially if the person is an attractive male. He, needless to say, has quite a sense of humour where his sexuality is concerned.

When he isn’t acting like the poster child for why and how Drugs are Bad, he’s a generally quiet and well-read boy. He’s not terribly academic, and his love of reading extends exclusively to fiction, but he reads a wide and eclectic variety of genres, and authors.

Like Lauren he plans to make dancing his career, though unlike her he has little interest in the theory of dance, only in the techniques and as such intends to forego college in favour of auditioning for a career on Broadway or, frankly, any stage that’ll have him.

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Now & Forever ABCs (Lisa)

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Lisa Jean Carroll

21 April 1996
Roman Catholic

Lisa is one of Lauren’s best friends, the two having become inseparable since they met on their first day of kindergarten.

Lisa is one of seven children in a very devout family.  Lisa herself, while not as scholarly about it as Lauren, is just as religious and holds her own in the AP Relgious studies classes — even if they are grade appropriate.

Lisa is not the world’s most complex person.  She is an avid reader, a huge Wesley Snipes fan (even before she decided he was the ultimate expression of male sexiness), and general comic book geek.  She spends what time she can over the summers at conventions when her parents will let her.  She generally goes with her uncle, and has even been known to cosplay as various favourite heroines, especially Batgirl, Starfire, Psylocke, and Cheetara.

She hopes, one day, she’ll be able to write comics — she’s also prone to drawing them, if not (by her personal standards) well.  Many of her friends have said she should just do her own comic.

Though a long time friend of Janet, the two do not always get along well — in fact they will readily admit that a major component of their friendship is their arguments and sniping at one another.  Janet aside Lisa is a very valued friend among those she elects to use the word for, being very good at keeping secrets and listening when they need someone to talk to if sometimes being unable to resist derailing a serious moment with some attempt, successful or ill-conceived being equally likely, at humour.

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Now & Forever ABCs (Lauren)

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Lauren Felicia Conners

9 January 1996
Lutheran (ELCA)

Lauren is a perfectionist.  She is always striving for excellence in anything she puts her hand to, be it her dancing, her studies, or setting the table.  Often this leaves her with an remarkable lack of confidence — she’s always worried she’ll mess up or fail.

She fell in love with dance at an early age.  By three she had shown such intense desire to dance that her parents had signed her up for lessons, because her wish to learn exceeded her family’s ability to teach her given that none of them knew more than ballroom dancing.  It became her life.  She has studied ballet from that first day — her love of dance having been born upon seeing a ballet, she’d begged to learn ‘the pretty dance’.  From there, however, she branched out and has taken further lessons in ballroom and latin dancing.  She has taken belly dance lessons, and is a long time student of a local modern and jazz dance instructor.  And, of course, ballet — always, she studies ballet.

Eventually she moved from her old ballet school to Mademoiselle Jeanette‘s as it offered a chance to gain greater experience on stage as well as a far more advanced study of technique.  In addition to dancing, Lauren has some interest in general performance so often tries out for school plays and takes drama electives when she gets the chance.

Lauren’s next great love is church.  She has grown up in a very religious family, and has a strong sense of the importance of God and faith.  Between that and having received all of her schooling from Catholic schools she took a strong interest in theology, especially Christian theology.  She has read every English translation of the Bible she could, and thoroughly, as well as making a devoted study of the history of the Abrahamic faiths and the Hebrew people.  She tries to understand her religion and its origins.  This has lead her to frequently excel in her Religious Studies lessons, such her school eventually ran out of options but to skip her ahead in subject, first placing her in Freshman theology in eighth grade, then in Junior’s level in her ninth grade year.  Even placing her in AP level courses has done little to assuage her boredom in these classes.

Her perfectionist and pious nature expresses itself in her relationships with others.  When she dates, she approaches it with the assumption that this person could be who she spends the rest of her life with — she doesn’t date to date or for social status, but to find the one person God has meant for her to be with.  When she makes friends she loves those friends and values those friendships deeply — even a casual friend, or even simply a friendly acquaintance is someone who Lauren cares deeply for and about.  Her capacity for forgiveness and caring even extends to those who are anything but friends — she’s human, she still manages to have angry thoughts and to see horrible things happen to those who upset her, but she simultaneously feels rather guilty about those thoughts and quickly tries to forgive them as much as she can.

This, plus her encyclopaedic knowledge of the Bible have led many to, depending how much they like her, affectionately or derisively refer to her as Saint Lauren and similar.  She’s seen as too sweet to be real, too good, and other things.  Those who know her well know this isn’t true — that she can be catty or mean when provoked, the she can hold the occasional grudge, that she does not always follow the rules, and that — despite being a virgin — she possibly knows as much or more than some who aren’t — she will investigate any curiosity she has in books and internet, including sexuality.

The one naïvety she ever expresses is in the form of aspects of pop culture.  While Lauren’s family has a television, it is used expressly for watching DVDs, Apple TV, and Blu-Rays; they have no cable nor antenna.  She does listen to the radio, both internet and airwaves (primarily satellite, but sometimes FM) and has an impressive collection of music, both physical and iTunes, and she enjoys movies from every era starting with the original silent silver screen flicks to the newest special effects blockbusters.  Still, the latest hit shows, latest popular talk show trivialities, and other goings on in the daily lives of the little people in the magic box are lost on her.  She’s watched the telly before, and it bored her.

Her friends call her a humble Hermione Granger (simply Hermione for short), and Linus — as in the Peanuts character who has such a habit of quoting Bible verse — but thanks to Salencia they’ve taken to simply calling her Pixie; a nickname she’s far more fond and proud of.  It’s also rather apt.  She has forever been a tiny girl, not always shortest in her class, but close to, very much lithe and petite — many of her clothes can still be bought in the children’s section of the department store, what of it she doesn’t make for herself, and combined with a complexion that is all freckles with copper red hair, she agrees with Sally:  the name fits.

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Now & Forever ABCs (Daren)

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Daren Keith Jones

14 December 1995
Baptist

Daren is a tall, handsome, and thoughtful young man.  He attended a different local elementary school from Lauren and many of her friends, but he met Sarah during fourth grade and became fast friends with her and during fifth grade he met and became friends with Lauren.

He has attended Immaculate Conception since sixth grade, and as a result has become friends — if not quite as close — with many of Sarah and Lauren’s other friends.

At IC he joined the baseball team as a pitcher, something he’s fair at, but not good enough to ever start with.  His batting average is atrocious.  His true sport is boxing, he takes lessons at the local Y and competes often, and he’s quite accomplished, bringing home more than a few trophies.  He hopes to get a college scholarship on his boxing, even possibly become pro for a short time.

He’d always had a bit of a crush on Lauren, having seen her even before he’d met her; at the end of seventh grade he finally worked up the nerve to ask her out, and the two seemed a perfect couple from there on.

The perfection was only on the surface, though.  The two grew to be less close friends while dating, until Lauren started to notice their lack of compatibility.  Both were determined to try to make it work out, partially out of a stubborn nature on both their parts, and because neither one had much stomach for casual dating — preferring to take all relationships quite seriously.

Despite his reaction when Lauren tells him she’s met someone else, he does care for her — as a valued friend, and as someone he really did have genuine feelings for — but he’s never been the most expressive young man where his feelings are concerned (something, he realises, might have helped him keep Lauren if he’d been better about) and as such takes a rather long time to renew his friendship with her.

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