How you doin’?

So I was writing the other night and one little line I typed out made me pause. It was the heroine thinking about the hero. It made me think…hold up, Shelli. Is this the kind of hero people would read about? Well, before I get to far ahead of myself, let me just show you the line.

This was the man who thought celibate had the same meaning as celebrate.

Now I haven’t full out decided if the hero really was that dense about the meaning of celibate, or if he was just screwing with the heroine’s head when he said it. Probably the second one. When I considered the first, I thought…no guy could be that thick. And no reader would want to read a book about a hero like that. Someone who’s endearing, sexy as hell, but maybe a little slow on the big words. Might not have exactly gone to Harvard. No one would want a hero in that spotlight.

Or would they. As I stared at that line I’d written, the image of one guy popped into my head. A guy who made that persona famous, and maybe we all could and did fall for him a bit. It was Joey on Friends. Remember him? Maybe it wasn’t even believable there–when he and Rachel started to get a thing going.

And then transfer that over to a romance novel. Would you want to read a romance with a Joey hero? I mean, yeah he’s really cute and he makes us laugh–as the side guy. But as the main dish? (And let’s forget that brief stint at his own show). Could you/would you want to read a romance with that kind of hero? Or are we so dead set in our standards. Alpha, betas, I don’t even know the rest…. What do you think?