People, Relationships, Self

I No Longer Believe In Prince Charming

genuine-love

I was recently doing a bit of cleaning up when I found a note that two of my friends had written to me in high school. It was a list of the things they liked about me. While reading it gave me as much of a confidence boost as it did when I first received it, and most of it hasn’t really changed (like my ‘unique sense of humour’ and my ‘nice arse’) there was one item on the list that has changed completely: ‘Her steadfast belief in the Prince that will come.’

I’m a little embarrassed at it even being on the list because up, until the age of about nineteen, I really did believe in the metaphorical Prince Charming that would one day sweep me off my feet. But I can’t really blame the seventeen year old me, living in a world where most boys ignored me completely as a romantic interest, and the very few that didn’t really weren’t right for me, I fed myself a steady diet of happily ever after stories from Disney to Jane Austen and my concept of a romantic love was mostly fictional. It wasn’t very long after high school that I stopped believing this.

Now at the age of 26, I don’t really believe that I’ll ever get married. It’s not that I don’t think there are nice single men out there, it’s more that as a highly introverted person I’m rather unwilling to meet any new people. I certainly don’t feel that I’m unworthy of love, but I am really quite happy on my own and don’t want to spend any of my time on the drama that comes with romantic relationships. My concept of love has shifted as I have matured.

I now see the searching of/waiting for a romantic and exclusive love to be fraught with all kinds of dangers. In the real world most jerks you meet are actually jerks and not misunderstood Mr Darcys. If you put all your energy in to trying to find a ‘soulmate’ (a concept I also don’t believe in anymore) you could completely miss your life. I have seen how this glorification of coupled love has led to so many toxic relationships and such low self esteem as people wonder what’s wrong with them if they can’t get/keep a partner or the partner they get doesn’t magically make them happier.

It’s not that I don’t believe in happy marriages. I have witnessed some, with my parents, grandparents and friends. But I also now believe that the reason why they’re happy marriages has more to do with each person treating the other one lovingly than some imaginary sense of fate. It’s not so much that they are perfect for one another, it’s that they know how to act lovingly even when the other’s faults are really irritating them.

But for every happy relationship I have seen, I have also seen its miserable, codependent, toxic and sometimes abusive counterpart. I now believe that some people can be head over heels, crazy for each other, and for there to be no genuine love between them. Possession, attraction, jealously, romantic gooey feelings are real, but it’s not love. I know genuine love – it doesn’t injure, it doesn’t manipulate, it makes someone more of a person, not less.

I’m also not disparaging of either Disney or Jane Austen now, as I have matured so has my understanding of them. When I read Jane Austen, I notice less about the romantic main storyline and look at the much more interesting elements. I notice the incredibly detailed and flawed characters. I see how many people in her novels don’t actually end up with the happily ever after. I contemplate the character of Charlotte Lucas and thank God I live in a time period where I can support myself and I don’t have to secure a good match to be fiscally responsible. Singleness is much more palatable to me than the modern equivalent of Mr Collins.

I now think that maybe fairytales weren’t ever supposed to be exclusively about romantic love. I think maybe they’re metaphors about how powerful genuine love is. Genuine love can overcome some pretty bleak circumstances. I have seen love bring my Grandmother back from a point where she couldn’t speak to a place where people meeting her for the first time don’t realise she has had a stroke at all. Now fair is fair, modern medicine had a lot to do with the fact that she lived and experts knowing that needed to be done in her rehabilitation made it all possible, but I know that without my mother spending hours of her time practicing those rehabilitation exercises with my Grandmother the results would not have been as great. I say love because love is what causes someone to do selfless things like doing repetitive and often frustrating word exercises with someone.

I don’t feel emptier because of the rejection of the belief that there’s someone out there who would make me happy in marriage. In fact, it has made it all the easier to accept the love I do have in my life. Earlier this year I went to the Musée d’Orsay and spent some time staring at my favourite artwork but unlike Blair Waldorf there was no handsome stranger also staring at the statue. But it didn’t matter because I wasn’t looking for one, I was too busy explaining to my family why it was my favourite artwork and taking it all in. I later had extensive discussion with my sister about its various meanings. I would have missed all that if I had been looking at the crowd for a fantastical Prince Charming instead of at the artworks.

I know love because I see the joy that my father gets from spending his hard earned time off doing menial labour to help my sister and his mother, just because it makes life easier for them. I also know the joy in helping my mother with the housework because it helps her. I know that caring for other people, my friends and my family, multiplies my joy because I can be happy when they are happy. I think genuine love is when someone else’s happiness becomes inherent to your own.

Maybe this large amount of love in my circle of family and friends has spoiled me a bit. All the people in my life that I love and that love me have been there for at least five years. One of the reasons I don’t think I’ll get married is that I’m not an easily trusting person; I’m not sure I could ever trust someone enough to marry them. Not that I’m not open to extending my love to new people, it’s just there’s so much baggage that comes with romance that it’s easy to get in the way of authentic love. So I don’t believe that there’s a metaphorical prince coming to marry me anymore. But I do still believe in love. I’m not waiting for it. I already have it.

What kind of love do you believe in? What opinions and beliefs have you completely changed since high school?

    You may also like

    Pieces Of Me

    Friends: Pieces Of Me

    should-have-been-a-boy

    I Should Have Been A Boy (a post for International Women’s Day)

    youre pregnant

    How To Tell Your Infertile Friend You’re Pregnant

    react-to-feel

    You Don’t Have To React To Everything You Feel

    power-of-asking 2

    How To Unlock The Power of Asking

    still-no-baby

    Another Year, Another Christmas, Still No Baby

    • http://johnanthonyjames.com/ John James

      I think you know when you know…

      When The Rhonnifer and I met, we were friends from the moment we met. We grew closer and closer – and I think love snuck up on us – but once we both realised what we felt for each other, there was never any doubt – we just knew we were meant to be together – I can’t really describe how that feels – you just know…

      That doesn’t mean it’s just been kittens and unicorns over the past 21 years – it hasn’t been – we’ve had periods where living together has been really difficult – you have to work at a relationship sometimes – but the one thing that has never changed between us is our commitment to “the relationship” – and that relationship transcends how we feel about each other at any particular time – our relationship isn’t just about love – it’s more than that…

      Even during the lowest points in our relationship – even when we fight and curse and hate being near each other – our relationship comes first – a relationship is more than love – it’s everything wrapped up together – love and memories and history and goals and compromise and commitment and laughter and tears and frustration and joy…

      I think that’s what I’ve learnt more than anything else… if you think the only basis for a relationship is “love” then you’re never going to be happy in a relationship – it’s more than that – when you commit yourself to someone, you commit to everything – the good times and bad – sometimes you experience a lot of love – sometimes you don’t – but you know that as a couple you are both bigger than the sum of your parts – that’s when you know you’re right for each other!

      • Jessica Chapman

        I suppose I don’t really think of love as an emotion. That commitment you talk about is a big part of what I believe love to be.

    • Inconsiderate Axioms

      No two people are alike, so every relationship will involve friction and a lot of friction leads to interpersonal aggression. For my mind I would assume 100% of relationships are violent at some stage, under some definition of violence.

      Human nature requires understanding and compromise in order to function in the parameters of a relationship, but more importantly it needs an adequate perception of reality.

      Love is merely the facilitation of and interpretation.

      What is of paramount importance is equality. Do the people in the relationships bring equal perceivable value. Money, looks, personality, humour, assets and social aptitude are all things with value, but some times a person may think they are entitled to more value than they bring to the table.

      I find those who have the proverbial “laundry list” of things they want invariably fail to meet the appropriate reciprocal value.

      • Jessica Chapman

        Unless your definition of violence is so broad that it no longer actually means violence I’d have to disagree. Violent behaviour involves an intention to damage which I believe to be mutually exclusive of what I’d term genuine love.

        I agree that friction is something that happens in relationships but it’s how you deal with it that makes it loving/unloving. But I believe we may have a different definition of love, due to the fact that I don’t really see love as a facilitation of a relationship. I see it as a force in our lives that drives us to be more selfless and genuine people.

        A relationship that hinges on perceivable value doesn’t fall under what I would categorise as genuine love. Because what would happen if suddenly that perceivable value fell in one of the parties? What if there was an accident that irrevocably damaged both looks and the ability to earn money? If the relationship hinges on perceivable value the other party should feel free to leave the relationship and go and seek someone else who is equal to them. I don’t really see that as love because I view love as something that sees more than the perceivable value in a person, it sees in the internal value in someone.

        I think people who are looking for a ‘laundry list’ aren’t actually looking for genuine love. They’re looking for a pragmatic relationship where they will come to an arrangement where x needs are met in return for meeting x needs in the other person. I don’t believe someone who genuinely loved would keep a mental list like that.

        • Inconsiderate Axioms

          I consider all aggression to axiomatically be violent, intentions are irrelevant.

          I believe love as defined by most people, creates hostility and a degree of jealousy attributable to the very frail psychological nature of human beings. To be in love is put one’s self under an immense risk of depriving said self of the positive endogenous morphines that neuroscience shows are both addictive and behavior modifying.

          Humans with differing amygdala function, will behave with divergence.

          To consider the initial stages of of romantic involvement to not be a value exchange would be antithetical to almost all existing observable evidence to the contrary. I’m not sure that’s what you’re positing though. Perhaps you are referring to an established relationship.

          Even in relationships, perceivable value changes; ergo, relationships dissolve.
          I would postulate that people mix emotional responses with pragmatism in relationships and that everyone keeps a set of checks and balances to a degree, both consciously and subconsciously.

          • Jessica Chapman

            I believe that genuine love is something experienced in all relationships not just in ones of a romantic nature. I will admit it could be a slightly different definition than what most have. The English language has been immensely limiting by just having the one word for the love I have for my family versus the love I might have for a romantic partner.

            I would also define any aggressive, manipulative or jealous behaviour as something other than genuine love. People may call it love, in a romantic sense, but I don’t believe it to be love. I also think that most initial stages of romantic involvement don’t have much to do with my definition of love: attraction yes, flirtation yes, the gooey feeling some would call love yes, but not what I would term genuine love.