To Blush or Not to Blush...

I received this comment on my blog and I thought it was interesting. It referred to my comment about how I'm so sick and tired of reading how girls blush in books.

"u have no right to go around saying that girls dont blush."

Um, I didn't say that. I did say, "I am so sick of characters being described by their ability to blush. Honestly, I can't think of a single person who I have witnessed blush to such an extent. Yet it seems to be the physical trait of choice for teen girls who are feeling flustered/embarassed/caught off guard/attracted to someone/stupid/inept, etc."

Case in point: I just started reading a new book and in the first 8 pages the main character "flushes" twice. In 8 pages!! And there wasn't even anything terribly mortifying or embarssing that happened. One book I read had a character blush a total of 12 times in the book. Was there no other way to describe her feelings? How the situation made her feel?

It has nothing to do with blushing. If books were having characters clear their throats or scratch their chins as much as they have characters blushing it would be just as annoying.

Sure, people blush. They also look away, cast their eyes down, feel their stomach do flip flops, want to throw up, want to run away and hide, etc. I still think there is way too much blushing going on in teen books. I think it's just an easy way to describe how someone's emotions are communicated to the outside world physically. But it loses its impact when it's the go-to reaction for every uncomfortable situation.

I also said, "To think that teen girls are simply a hotbed of cheeky blood vessels is to do them a supreme injustice to their emotional range," because I believe that - girls feel a million different ways and react to those feelings differently depending on who they're with, who saw them, how big the mistake was, if they were caught off guard, etc. Blushing isn't always the answer when writing how a girl feels. Sometimes they don't blush but they do something else, like twirl their hair. Everyone is different and yet characters all seem to blush. I don't get it.

And to answer the commenter's last words, "i guess u and ur friends r just so perfect that u have never done anything remotely embarrassing."

We do embarassing things all the time, it's a big reason why we love each other. We do stupid things, make mistakes, say dumb stuff, make idiots of ourselves in front of other people. I just think there are more interesting ways to describe how that makes us feel then to sum it up by saying our cheeks turned red.