I think every girl has grown up on a steady diet of fairy tales. The princess meets the prince, some bad stuff happens, and then they live happily ever after. Has anybody else noticed how its only the beautiful princess and the handsome prince who have a happily ever after? What about the less attractive people? Were they doomed to a lonely and unhappy life? Even as a child, I was never a big fan of fairy tales. Apart from the fact that they were extremely vain, I found a lack of personality in most of the characters. There are very few fairy tale characters that appealed to me. One of them was Belle (from Beauty and the Beast).
Belle was one of those rare characters that I could imagine myself becoming some day. She wasn't vain. Her ultimate goal in life wasn't to find a man. She read, she was intelligent, and she didn't fall for the charms of the apparently handsome Gaston. She wasn't afraid to speak up her mind, and she stood up to the Beast, even if he was scary. I admired that quality in her.
And more than anything else, she was able to see past the Beast's tough exterior, and even go as far as to love him. She didn't know about the curse on the Beast's castle. She loved him not knowing he would turn into a prince. She loved him just the way he was. That is the kind of person I want to be.
How many of us are capable of undying, unconditional love? I don't know if i'm capable of that. I want to be and I hope that some day, when I meet my soul mate, I'll able to look into his heart and love him for just that.
I hate that little girls are told stories about the wrong kind of prince charming. The right prince charming might not be handsome, he might not sweep you off your feet. You keep looking for the wrong prince, and the right one escapes from right under your nose. From a young age, children are taught that beauty is the key to happiness. Then they grow up believing that. By the time they realise how wrong they were, its too late. Your real prince charming has moved on.
