I think I promised a few blogs ago to talk about the first time I fell in love. Well here it is. My first love was a boy called Gilbert Blyth. Unfortunately, though he did grow up to be a doctor and generally lovely person, he also married his childhood sweetheart, Anne Shirley, commonly known by thousands of children as Anne of Green Gables.
It was OK though. I also loved Anne as truly as a sister so I was happy for them both. I'm a nice girl like that.
Of course the other problem with Gilbert Blyth was that he was entirely imaginary, as were a long progression of other men: the prince from Disney's Sleeping Beauty; Mr Thornton from North & South; Jamie Fraser, a Jacobite Scotman; Darragh, an Irish gypsy; Heathcliff...
All imaginary and all entirely unobtainable. And not like real people at all because even though these characters are not written flawless, they are somehow perfectly flawed. Like how Achilles' only weakness is his heel, but it is this chink in the armour that makes him a hero.
They say that Disney and romance give women unrealistic expectations of men, that we all want a superhero or Prince Charming but we know that would be boring. What I at least would look for is the perfect flaw.
But how do you tell what the perfect flaw is? Maybe it needs to be something you don't suddenly notice, but that you grow to love and not become annoyed with. Or maybe it could be something that at first is the only thing you see and then suddenly, it becomes something you are blind to. Did any of that make any sense? Probably not. Basically who knows. Not me, for sure.
I'm hardly an expert. I'm a non-dater. This is when you agree to go on what normal people would think of as dates but insist they are nothing of the sort. Or I avoid any kind of definite answer: "I don't know when I'm free..." Or from a warped sense of either self preservation or pride I become deliberately obtuse or very Britishly self-mocking.
So I have not discovered what the perfect flaw is.
I blame catholic girls school (where the only examples of boys are Jesus and the pervy geography teacher who possibly has a bottle of whiskey in his cupboard to see him through the day) and ballet (where men wear tights). They don't teach you about boys there and as we all know, men are much more complicated than women. I have only recently observed first hand that rather than a tragically mortal heel being the perfect flaw, an annoying adiction to xbox is more likely. Or a comic book collection. Or selfishness. Everyone is selfish though, so that doesn't really count.
It's a whole confusing world out there. Disney men don't say they'll call and then disappear until they need something from you, and they would never kiss all the other princesses, or compare notes with their prince friends. They have cool and much more forgivable faults like having been turned inconveniently into a frog.
However, Disney men don't seem likely to make you laugh. And they wouldn't be so undignified as to go on the swings in the park with you. And you couldn't tell them you fancy Rupert Grint. They wouldn't be half as fun as proper people.
Actually I'm holding out for Gilbert so its all irrelevant anyway!
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