From a young age, we are exposed to unrealistic love stories. We go from watching "Sesame Street" to learn our ABCs to seeing Walt Disney pictures of princesses getting swept off their feet. Before we can even say the word love; we know all too well what it means -- or, what it is supposed to mean.

The sad truth behind the television and movies that we grow up watching is that they set us up for failure. We think that we are supposed to have someone to call our own from the second we get past the cooties phase. Minnie has a Mickey, Wanda has a Cosmo, Fiona has a Shrek, and the list goes on.

We create this idea of what a perfect guy would be in our heads. He is cute, funny, smart, handsome, and he is everything that we dreamed he would be. He’ll kiss us in the rain and pick us up in his truck for a perfect romantic evening. We run these scenarios over in our heads and then we try to apply Mr. Dream Man to the guys that are actually within our reach.

It all starts in middle school when you go out with your first crush. Maybe, you even have your first kiss. You start dreaming of being with him forever. You picture going to senior prom together. You write about him in your diary. You want one of those lifelong love tales with the boy who grew up down the street. And then you wake up from this silly little dream.

Then you enter high school and figure that maybe Mr. Right will come along. He could be right in front of you; maybe he’s even your best friend. He might be on a sports team, or maybe he’s the lead in the next drama production. He walks you to your locker, carries your books, and kisses you before you go to class. He gives you his sweatshirt when you’re cold, and you wear his letterman jacket so people know that you are his. You watch movies together on Friday nights and drink hot chocolate during winter storms. He’s your fairytale ending.

Then he breaks your heart. Your world gets flipped upside down, and your perfect life as you pictured it changes. You wake up from this dreamland only to find out that Troy Bolton doesn’t actually exist, Nathan Scott is a fictional character, and Romeo only knew Juliet for a day. The truth is, you probably won’t marry the guy that carried your books in the hallways of your high school because as much as we hate to admit it, Corey and Topanga only exist on a television screen. I know, it hurts.

It is then that you realize that we tend to fall in love with the idea of a person that we create in our heads. We try over and over again to keep him alive. We would do almost anything for Mr. Perfect Dream Man to come along when what we really need to do is stop trying to create our knight in shining armor. If we want to fall in love, we need to just let it happen. Trying to create the perfect love story is too exhausting. We need to write our own fairytale and not long for the ones that already exist.

So keep your glass slippers on, put your long hair back in a pony tail, and realize that you are not a damsel in distress. The perfect guy will come along someday, but only if you let him do just that.