We live in a society that is obsessed with cliches. Take the Hallmark channel for instance. All the movies are exactly the same. Girl meets boy by accident, girl thinks he’s really nice, but something keeps them apart such as people they are dating or work or one of them says something offensive to the other. Then girl has a shocking revelation that what she’s been looking for in a man has been this guy all along. Then they end up together, happily ever after.

Well, unless you’re super lucky, or you have some angel looking over you, that will never happen. Life is not a rom-com and you’re never going to find some guy to sweep you off your feet like a princess because that just doesn’t happen in real life. What you are looking for is only found in cheesy, overly predictable, cliche movies and romance novels.

My problem is I read way too many books. I grew up on books. Most of my early, impressionable years were spent reading books. So I believed, for the longest time, in fairytale love stories and happy endings. I believed that there would be a time, around the ripe age of 16 that I would meet the man I loved and he would be the most perfect person I had ever laid eyes on.

Well, let me tell you, no guy at the age of 16 is someone I could ever fall in love with. I don’t think I’ll ever understand what they do and why. But I just kept waiting, because I knew that someday soon, I would meet the man of my dreams. I just knew that when I would get the perfect guy, all my dreams would come true. So needless to say, my 14-year-old self was very naive and childish.

Of course, now, at the age of 17, I know a lot more than I did at the age of 14. One of the things I learned along the way was: there’s no such thing as the perfect person. Nobody can ever be perfect. There is always going to be something someone doesn’t like about them or something nobody knows about them. And, not to be cliche, but it’s what’s on the inside that counts. Another thing I learned between 14 and 17 was that I don’t need a guy to make me happy. I don’t need someone who may or may not love me, who may or may not nag me about the way I look, I just need someone who is going to be there when I need them. Someone who will love me unconditionally. Someone I want to be with, not someone I feel like I should be with.

Cliches are nice when you want something sappy to watch on TV at night, but no one can live a cliche. I’m sure there’ve been a few times for some people where something like a rom-com scene happens to them. But for most people, you’ll never be standing in the rain holding a cat while a boyishly handsome writer with the same name as your brother kisses you and you realize it was him you should have been with the whole time. Because while you could possibly look like Audrey Hepburn, you don’t get to be Holly from

Breakfast At Tiffany’s. The thing about cliches is they’re so overdone, that even the word cliche is a cliche.