Let’s be honest, I’ve been a sucker for romance since the iconic eruption of Troy and Gabriella's relationship in “High School Musical.” Ironically, meeting a cute boy that sings and finding out that he also goes to your high school, which sparks a beautiful relationship was a childhood dream. A childhood dream that was sadly crushed sooner or later in life. If I could say, that was the start of something new at 8-years-old.

Movies and books have deceived me in the last twenty years of life because everything isn’t true, sadly. The first romance movie that shook my soul was “The Notebook,” I remember watching that around 11-years-old and sobbing. All I wanted was someone to love me like Noah loves Allie in the movie. Let me tell you, not all dreams come true.

Transitioning from a child to a teenager had me holding on to the edge of my seat quietly waiting to be swept off my feet by the man of my dreams. The picturesque scene of walking across the hallway and all my books fall to the ground and a boy with the dreamiest eyes would help pick up the books. Eventually, we would lock eyes and it would be happily ever after, but that never happened. How can I say this politely? Men aren’t like that in real-life, ever so sadly.

“The Notebook,” “The Fault In Our Stars” and “The Last Song” allowed me to believe in a fairytale that doesn’t exist. Not be an absolute pessimist and rain on anyone’s parade, but movies have fooled me too well at a young age. I love a good romance movie or two, but I held on to the unrealistic expectation of romance from movies for too long. Creating expectations for men that could never be fulfilled from a depiction of fictional characters.

It has been a long-time coming, but I’ve set free to those fictional characters that flooded my thoughts of romance as a child. Not every man will write you a letter for 365 days or use his “Make-A-Wish” to meet your favorite author across the globe. Sadly, I couldn’t expect every man I met to be just like Augustus Waters or Noah Calhoun. I couldn’t expect every romance to equal a movie from my childhood.

So, whoever is the next guy to sweep me off my feet, I just want to let you know I won’t expect you to be like the infamous Ryan Gosling or Ansel Elgort. I’m not expecting us to meet from a sudden collision where you help pick my books off the floor and our eyes gaze into each other. Lastly, I’m not expecting you to write me a letter every single day in a year and build me a house. I would appreciate you laughing at all my jokes, even if they kinda suck. I don’t expect too much just to let you know. So please, just be a decent person with good morals and have a top of the notch jaw-line and everything will be just fine.