One of the perks of going to USC is getting to take cool classes - currently, I'm taking a class on fairytales. For about an hour and a half, two days a week, I get to sit in a classroom and discuss how Snow White is a metaphor for female competition, Sleeping Beauty is a vehicle for rape culture, and Shrek is the wokest of them all. Being the lonely nihilist I am, it didn't take me too long to start pin pointing all the reasons I haven't gotten my fairytale romance yet. I might be young, but most of our favorite princesses were sixteen when they found their true love. If Ariel was a 21st century woman, would she have met her prince charming on Bumble?
I should preface this by saying I'm not a romantic. I don't believe in "soul mates", and I sure as hell don't believe in love at first sight. I believe that there's 7.5 billion people on Earth, and due to our insatiable urge to breed, we're bound to find someone we connect with. Sometimes love happens to people, sometimes it happens to you. But sometimes it doesn't, even when you're drowning in life's perils and you really really really think you could use it right now.
The truth is, romantic partners don't exist to save you. This is a lie that fairytales (as much as I adore them) made up. Most fairytale characters are one-dimensional: they don't have any real personality or nuance, and they have one purpose in the story. The purpose of the princess is to be trapped, and her lover to save her. This is fine in fairytales, because it's not about the characters at all, it's about the story - I know I'm not the only one who's inspired by Cinderella's tale of rags to riches, or Belle's ability to love someone beyond their appearance. However, this mentality doesn't work out all too well in real life. People are complex. Everyone has thoughts, feelings, and emotions that can be just as weird, unpredictable, selfish, and intense as yours. And everyone is trying to navigate the world with the same uncertainty as you are. How can we expect someone else to show up out of the blue and save us from our own existential doubt, when most people are carrying a suitcase full of it themselves?
Now if you're like me, you've probably asked yourself the question, "Why am I still single?" about a thousand times already. The answer isn't that "love finds you once you stop looking for it", nor is it "because you don't love yourself", nor is it any specific aspect of you as a person. Unless you're mean or something, but then again, even horrible people fall in love. The answer is... time. We're used to the economy of fairytales, and even films, books, and TV shows, in which everything important happens quickly. We're introduced to the two unsuspecting star-crossed lovers within the first chapter, minute, or episode, and this makes us feel insecure because we feel like we've already lived through about a million chapters. Heck, if my life was a TV show, it would probably be in the eighth season and on the verge of cancellation. But that's the beautiful thing about life - it's not a fairytale. Or a movie or a book or a show. It's Marina Abramovic's 736 hour and 30 minute performative art piece, "The Artist is Present", in which the artist, Abramovic, sat across from 1,545 people, maintaining eye contact with each and every one of them, bringing many to tears.
Romance isn't a spontaneous connection between two people that catapults you into a life-long marriage and solves all your problems, nor is it scrolling endlessly through dating apps for a suitor. Despite what the fairytales have told you, romance isn't even necessary for a happy ending (although the existence of happy endings is another caffeine-induced article). Romance is fine if you've found it, but many of us haven't, and some of us never will. In that case, you can still die happy knowing your weird and intricate mind touched the lives of others.
