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I Wanted a Fairy Tale Romance, What I Got Was So Much Better
An apology to my husband, and all men, for how women get brainwashed about romance.
By Melissa Charles
Dear Men,
On behalf of many women, I’d like to publicly apologize about the whole fantasy romance thing. As young girls, a lot of us were raised on media and society-driven princess fantasies, ball-gowns and magic slippers. We may have bought into the promise that one day our Prince would come, and from early on were inundated with a definition of romance that no mortal man could possibly match. In our teenage years, along came music. And, in the lyrics of popular ballads men were willing to die for women, they wrote countless love songs, and promised them, literally, the moon. Add in chick flicks, otherwise known as romantic comedies, and then romance novels. Women were raised with a ridiculous, unattainable standard of what they should expect from romance and of what a romantic partner should be or do.
Frankly, you guys were screwed, long before you got lucky, you get what I’m saying?
♦◊♦
Or else it doesn’t count. You don’t love her. You’re not romantic enough even if she believes you love her. She yearns for that grand romantic gesture that no normal guy…
