We have all become too familiar with this cliche fairy tale scenario of Prince Charming saving a damsel in distress, the two falling madly in love, then riding off into the sunset on a white horse to live happily ever after. This is the story that every female knows and has heard or dreamed about at least once in her life. Cliche or not though, this is the message that our society continues to embed in the minds of our young women. From the time we are little girls we are told there is this Prince Charming just waiting for us out there somewhere. However, as we get older these fairy tale stories told to us as children take the shape of "chick flicks." We watch as Carrie Bradshaw chases after Mr. Big and we think, "one day my Mr. Big will be standing in my walk-in closet in our penthouse just waiting on me to find him so he can slip a $500 shoe on my foot." We watch this dramatic love story unfold before us as this neurotic, train wreck of a woman goes on this quest to find her prince charming and we think, "why can't that be us?" Ultimately the message these fairy tales and unrealistic chick flicks are giving us is this: "Ladies, find prince charming, live happily ever after and you'll be happy." There a few flaws in that logic though.

Flaw number one: the fairy tale isn't real, ladies. Let that cold, hard truth sink in for a minute. The fairy tale is not, nor will it ever be, real. The problem is though, we are told all of our lives that Cinderella and the Prince really do exist and they really will meet one day and live happily ever after. Ironically, we are Cinderella and our Prince is out there, just waiting for the first sign of us breaking down and that is supposed to be his cue to swoop in, scoop us up and fix everything that is wrong with us. We are told to just go out there and find him and he will be the answer to all our problems because he is real. We just haven't met him yet.

Flaw number two: we keep going out there to look for our prince charming. We search high and low for this perfect guy that society keeps telling us exists. We look for him in the most random of places expecting him to be there. We do everything right by the books to look for him too. We wear the right outfit and we wear just enough makeup so that we don't scare him off while at the same time trying not to look like we run the street corner either. We coach ourselves on the right things to say and the right things to complement him on. We do everything right, ladies. We even pretend to be someone we're not. We do absolutely everything that society tells us to do to get our Prince Charming. After we put in all this work and time and effort into this we expect results. Meanwhile, we end up coming home empty handed every time because, big shock, this guy we met at the bar or this guy we met on Tinder is not our Prince Charming at all but rather he's just an average dude in his twenties trying to live his life and have a good time.

This poor, pitiful guy we are trying to dig our talons into is not thinking about being anybody's Prince Charming. He is not thinking about filling the hole in our heart. He is not thinking he wants to be the reason for our happiness. Rather he is thinking about living life while he's young and not settling down right this second. For us though, we think as soon as we spot a guy that may even remotely resemble our prince charming, we have to snatch him up before he gets taken off the market. Society tells us we have to snatch him up because if we don't then we will be forever alone and no one will ever love us because the clock is ticking. Here we are already twenty-two years old, unwed, childless, and usually still trying to get through school or trying to figure out the game plan for the next year of our lives and we will be forever alone if we don't find him now. That's why we need Prince Charming. If we add him to the equation then everything else will fall into place, right? We will base our dreams and goals around his dreams and goals and then see where that takes us because we don't want to be alone forever.

This brings me to flaw number three in this fairy tale logic. Society has been totally unfair to us. Let me preface this by saying I think we have made huge improvements in our society for the equality of women. There is no doubt about that. However, while I think we have made these major improvements in allowing women the dream to be more than what our grandmothers were allowed to dream about, our society continues to tell us that we have to hurry up and get married to the first decent guy that comes our way. We have to hurry up and get our Prince Charming so we can be "happy". Finding Prince Charming and living happily ever after is the only thing in our lives that will be worth anything. This is where we will get our happiness from society tells us. Ladies, that is simply untrue.

While getting married and settling down is not a bad thing in the least, and it isn't, it is my opinion that society keeps telling us that's all we need to make us happy. The only thing that we are good for in this life is finding a decent man to marry and have children with before we're 25 and if we don't then something is wrong with us and we might as well hang up the idea of ever being truly happy. Of course this idea scares us a little. We know in the front of our minds that it simply isn't true that we will be forever alone and unhappy for the rest of our lives if we don't find our prince charming before we're thirty. But in the back of our minds that is the fear that keeps us up at night. That is the fear that leads us into every single dysfunctional relationship we have ever had. That is the fear that keeps us in that dysfunctional relationship. That is the fear that drives every man that comes into our lives far, far, far away.

We allow our society to do us such a disservice, ladies. We let our society tell us what will make us happy and we buy into all that happily ever after nonsense. Sure, there is more than likely a great guy roaming around out there that we will meet one day and wonder how we got along without him so long. We will probably fall head over heels in love with him and be as happy as we could possibly be. But, we simply cannot allow our society to tell us that this is the only thing we need in this life to make us happy. We simply cannot allow our society to make us feel as though we will be forever alone and unloved if we don't find this Prince Charming, Mr. Big kind of guy. At some point we have to wake up to the fact that there is more to us than being Mrs. Charming or Mrs. Big. Society should be telling us to be smart, successful women with Prince Charming as a bonus, not a necessity to our happily ever after happiness.