The Main Character Of My Novel Is Not A Simp!

December 26, 2024

He’s watching his girlfriend dance crazy, but that doesn’t make him a simp!

When a 20 year-old coworker said that Jimmy, the main character in my book The Sunset Rises: A 1990s Romantic Comedy, sounded like a simp, I got defensive. I shouldn’t have gotten defensive. Jimmy is a fictional character. Even so, my brain churned out an immediate response:

“Oh yeah? Your mom says YOU’RE a simp.”

No, I didn’t say that, but I thought it. I don’t know my coworker well enough to go straight to bringing up his mom. He might not understand. I’m almost 60 years old; I’m probably older than my coworker’s mom. Sometimes men in their twenties don’t understand why I say things about their moms. I’ve had to explain it a few times. If anything, I’m probably lucky that I haven’t been punched out.

Anyway, I had been explaining the premise of my novel The Sunset Rises: A 1990s Romantic Comedy to a couple guys at work, and that’s why my main character was insulted. I’m pretty sure ‘simp’ was an insult. “Simp’ is a relatively new term, though, so I’m not 100% certain. Men didn’t use the word ‘simp’ when I was in my twenties. We had words like ‘whipped’ or ‘pup’ or ‘whipped pup,’ and in some cases ‘wussy.’ I was pretty sure a ‘simp’ was just a guy who was ‘whipped.’

‘Simp’ should be an easy word to figure out, even for a guy my age. The word ‘simp’ sounds like ‘wimp.’ ‘Simp’ is also a short version of ‘simple.’ The internet definition of ‘simp’ (because the internet always gets this stuff right) is “is an internet slang term describing someone who shows excessive sympathy and attention toward another person, typically to someone who does not reciprocate the same feelings, in pursuit of affection or a sexual relationship.”

Yeah…’whipped’… but worse.

Critics say The Sunset Rises has a great beat, and you can dance to it.

My first reaction is that Jimmy is not a simp because Jimmy actually has some romantic success with women. Most simps (from what I understand) don’t get positive female attention unless they give up way too much first, and even then, it’s not guaranteed. Simps (from what I understand) will do anything they can to get positive attention from women in general and are willing to get bossed around or embarrassed in public just to (temporarily) keep a woman.

Jimmy is ‘whipped’ because he has boundary issues like this only with Valerie, the female ‘luuuvvv’ interest, not with women in general. I wanted The Sunset Rises: A 1990s Romantic Comedy to show the dangers of infatuation, and even though the infatuated character in my novel is male, women fall for infatuation too, so most readers should be able to relate to Jimmy in some way.

Just so you know, ‘Luuuvvv’ is just another word for ‘infatuation.’

Infatuation has a horrible effect on people in both genders. Men, when infatuated, will often spend all their money on a woman or murder somebody. Women, when infatuated, will often sleep with the guy right away and yearn for him for eternity when he moves on a couple hours later. Either way, those who are infatuated give up their boundaries far too easily.

Infatuation, no matter what the modern slang for it is, makes both men and women make bad decisions, but it can make for great stories. This distinction, however, might be too precise to discuss with my much younger coworker. Next time, I’ll just talk about his mom.

*****

A grammar-obsessed English teacher falls in ‘luuuvvv’ but discovers how chaotic and dangerous ‘luuuvvv’ can be.