The Modern Fairy Tale

As a female millennial, I’m associated with the generation that grew up with the renaissance age of animation. Animated movies are how my generation first viewed fairy tales and love. Shockingly, those films aren’t the literal model for how we view love as adults.

My favorite movie as a kid was Beauty and the Beast. I could identify with Belle and I never thought her oddness was actually...odd. In the animated film, the villagers do think she’s beautiful but because she does things out of the norm she’s an outcast. But to me, I didn’t think of her as one; I didn’t think being different was a bad thing. How boring would the world be if we were all the same?

While I wanted the Beasts library more than anything; I also wanted a love like theirs. Something built up over time, something sweet that develops from friendship to companionship to real love. Belle was never a damsel in distress, she was inventive and pragmatic and she worked out how to solve problems on her own.

As much as I loved Sleeping Beauty and Cinderella and Snow White, those aren’t the princesses I wanted to be as a kid. I didn’t have the patience to wait for a prince to save me. With my luck, the poor guy would be lost in a Forrest and need my help to find his way home.

What Beauty and the Beast taught me was that love is give and take; you get out what you put in. With respect and understanding, love can conquer anything.

Unfortunately, I’ve yet to find someone to give me respect OR understanding in return for love.

I’m 27 years old and I’ve dated a few people with the past 10 years I’ve been actively dating. And while I have been proposed to a couple times, it never felt right to me.

My very first boyfriend proposed to me when I was 18. I wasn’t pregnant, he would just talk about how he wanted to spend the rest of his life with me. I said no, I wasn’t ready to get married and I definitely didn’t want to marry him. I was too young and he didn’t respect my boundaries or understand that I wanted to accomplish things before getting married. He wanted us married with kids by the time I turned 20 and there was no talking him out of it.

I dated a guy for five years, we talked about getting married and our parents would talk about it constantly. But whenever I brought up getting engaged, he refused to do it. He wanted a secret engagement and a secret wedding. I’m not particularly close with my family but I would still want a wedding. He refused to understand things from my perspective. He didn’t respect my opinion on anything. He wasn’t putting anything into our relationship; everything was always my fault even if I wasn’t in the same city as him. As much as I wanted us to get married, as much as I loved our families chemistry together; I couldn’t continue dating someone who wouldn’t meet me halfway.

My last Ex I honestly thought I could marry. When we first started dating, everything was wonderful. We decided to keep our relationship a secret as we worked together but he was so romantic. He listened. He understood my dreams and desires. He respected my boundaries. He paid attention when I talked. He loved me unapologetically. But he refused to make our relationship public. After 18 months of keeping it a secret, I had to have the hard conversation with him. If he loved me, he would choose me. It wasn’t against our company rules for us to date. There was no reason to keep it a secret. And yet he chose to break up with me rather than be truthful about us. It broke my heart. It broke me in ways I didn’t know I could break. I wanted him and a future with him more than anything else. And he just let me go without a second glance. After telling me for 18 months that I was his world, his girl, his soon to be bride. And he just broke it off like he was checking out from wal mart.

I’m at an age where people start to tell you to settle for someone.

“You don’t want to be alone forever, do you?”

Here’s the thing, I’ve grown up watching relatives who settled and I remember so many ruined holidays and birthdays because they just had to fight right then and there.

I’ve worked with couples who settled and it shows, they fight constantly and talk about each other behind their backs. They barely tolerate the others general existence let alone care for them.

If I don’t find someone who can respect and understand me, I’d rather be alone.

I’d rather drink wine alone in an apartment with my books and paintings that in a large house with a husband I can barely stomach crawling into bed with and two kids sleeping down the hall.

And there are some marriages that can work with settling for each other, loving roommates more or less.

But for me, I’d always want more.

I want to love someone with my heart and soul.

I want to love someone for all their flaws.

I want to love someone for their passions.

I want to love someone for who they are.

And I’ll be okay if that someone is myself.

Of course, I’d love to get swept off my feet by a handsome prince who will promise to love me until the end of time. I’d love to live with him in a castle without a care in the world.

Unfortunately, the world I love in doesn’t allot for that outcome.

I love in Southern California, and odds are the next guy I date will be in the military or love to surf way too much for my personal taste.

I’m perfectly fine with reality, I don’t need a fairy tale to be happy. I just want a guy who will love me, who will respect and understand me, as I will do for him. While up to this point in my life, those traits have been apparently too much to ask for; that doesn’t mean I’ll give up hope that there is someone out there for me. Not a perfect man, but a imperfect person whom I can love.

And if I don’t find that person, I’ll be okay on my own too.