Slay your own dragons

From the moment girls are born it begins. We are being programmed. For your early years you are force fed the Great Disney classics like Snow White, Sleeping Beauty, Cinderella, and other such tales of love, romance and handsome Princes that risk life and limb to save you. After childhood, your teenage years, Saved by the Bell and Daytime Soap operas, more of the same story line. So by this point you have started to make certain assumptions about what love and dating is like.

When I was in middle school I really expected high school to be just like Saved by the Bell, My high school years were, in fact, nothing like I had anticipated.

So naturally you would assume that by the time I graduated from high school, moved on to college and into my adult years that I would learn that life is NOTHING like the movies, or like T.V. I did not learn this. I still actually believed that there was ONE person for me, soul mate, my other half, that was out there somewhere. By the time I was 20 I had faith that two people met, fell in love, got married and lived at the least a semi-happy ever after. There is much propaganda to fuel this thought process.

Exhibit A: Romance Novels. Same story every time, boy meets girl, girl has some reason to hate boy, boy pursues girl with undying ferocity until after "the angry kiss" they realize that they are madly in love and live happily ever after.

Exhibit B: Chick flicks. Much like Romance Novels they have a very similar theme, but always the promise that there is one perfect person for everyone, "You complete me." -Jerry McGuire "Id rather fight with you than make love to anybody else." - The Wedding Date, "You make me wanna be a better man." -As Good as it Gets. Girls love this shit, it restores the belief that there is a guy out there that will say the perfect thing at the perfect time and that you will have your "Movie Moment."

and Exhibit C: Primetime T.V. Why does Grey's Anatomy have more viewers every week than any other show, because of all the cool medical stuff? Hell NO! It's because it makes you believe. What is genius about the writing on this show is that the characters are flawed, awkward and damaged enough to give the viewer the message that they are REAL. Thus restoring faith that there really is a McDreamy that you will end up with or at the very least, enough McSteamy's to keep you busy til he realizes you are the one.

We are programmed. Partially because we want to believe. Every now and then you see just enough in real life to make you believe that it DOES happen. Your friend gets married to the perfect guy, at the perfect wedding (in which you actually loved your dress) and appear to have the perfect life...

Until he admits to an affair, they move out of their big shiny new house into separate small apartments. She confesses to you over a pint of Moose Tracks that she has never really been happy and she is relieved that she has a way out. SERIOUSLY? WTF!

And it happens again to your Goody Girl Cousin who he finds in his bed with some random guy in a cowboy hat and spurs that she is riding like its the last 8 seconds of the Rodeo Finals...

And again to your next door neighbor, who is loading her stuff in to a U-haul and tells you "We just drifted apart."

And Again to the girl at work who missed a couple days to "Iron Out" the legalities of the restraining order he put on her when she torched all his stuff on the front lawn because there were an alarming amount of text messages on his cell phone bill attributed to some "Home Wrecking Hussy, whose name is actually Chastity, can you BELIEVE that?"

And so it goes, because we are not equipped to handle what real relationships are like. Because there are too few movie moments. Because you realize that the honey moon doesn't really last forever. Because you finally understood after a couple years that you settled, or you got married to young. And because after years of feeling unappreciated someone else pays attention to all the wonderful things about you that your partner has seemed to have forgotten.

I hope I am wrong, and I hope that people really can be matched on "the 29 dimensions of compatibility" by the wonderful non enterprising folks of e-harmony. I hope that "True Love" really exists, it happens, and most of all that it lasts, but I see no evidence to support this.

I am not completely giving up on this, after all you can't undo overnight, decades of conditioned response, but at the least I will see the chick flicks, grey's anatomy's and etc as what they are, fantasy produced and marketed for my entertainment.

Update:
I have since found my Charming Prince, got married and am pursuing my happy ever after. I'll let you know how it goes. So far.... so good.