This Ain't A Fairytale

For quite some time, I have been in denial about a certain trend in my life, namely, my lack of any romantic success. For every disappointment, I’ve managed to come up with an excuse. It has seemed as though a justification of the failure would preclude it being scored as a Loss—maybe even a Win, or at least a Tie. This excuse-making has reached ridiculous proportions and it is time to end it.

Looking around, I see so many amazing women who are in their 30s, 40s, and up, and are still single. I’m certainly no better than any of them. If these awesome women are still unmarried, what chance do I have? I’m not a princess and this is most definitely not a fairytale. I’m just me. I’m okay with that, even if that means I’ll just be alone. I don’t want to be, but maybe I’m meant to be on my own anyway.

It’s exhausting to always end up overlooked, forgotten and outright rejected. A girl can only take so much failure before she feels like she should just go ahead and remove herself from the gene pool entirely. My self-confidence has been consistently trashed for the past several weeks, months, even years. No more. I am officially quitting. I will not be bitter or cynical (or dabble in lesbianism); I will simply stop dreaming and accept reality.

If the fairytale has come true for you, wonderful! Cherish it, protect it! For myself, I have to stop expecting dreams to come true. I have to stop waking up every day, hoping that day might be the day I’m finally swept off my feet. I need to stop looking out my window for Prince Charming and just go right on being fabulous all by myself. If someone wants me, he’ll have to come find me because I am done waiting for something that might never happen.

Tragedy Tomorrow, Comedy Tonight

The easiest way to know whether one of Shakespeare’s plays is a comedy or a tragedy is to skip to the end. Supposedly, tragedies always end with a death… comedies, with a wedding. Have you ever noticed how many contemporary “romantic comedies” end with the happy couple getting together? Lingering kiss and sentimental song included, of course.

Too many profound, realistic films are cast aside by modern audiences simply because they do not have a “happy ending.” Just the other day, a friend was expressing her disdain for Casablanca, because the hero doesn’t get the girl at the end. That, however, should not be the definition of a satisfying conclusion to a story. I love the end of Casablanca because Rick lets Ilsa go! He actually does the right thing and then moves on. After all, “the problems of three little people don’t amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world.”

Our culture has become too Disney-fied for its own good. Sometimes, there really is no Prince Charming and the bad guys really do win. The Little Mermaid is a perfect example of this. In the original tale (transcribed by Hans Christian Andersen in 1836) the prince marries another princess and then the mermaid sacrifices her own life to save his anyway. Today, however, children grow up believing that they’ll live happily ever after and have everything they ever wanted—just as soon as they can get a credit card.

Life is neither a comedy nor a tragedy. Sure, you can dream of a magical kingdom, but do not compromise yourself to attain it. At the end of the day, it’s better to be alone and know that you did the right thing, than to have all your dreams come true and not be able to look at yourself in the mirror. That’s not a dream, that’s a nightmare that too many people live every day.