This one is about love. Actually this one is about men.

All my life I’ve had this picture perfect idea of what my dream man would turn out to be like and exactly how he would treat, love, and pamper me. Some people deemed me naïve for putting love on such a high pedestal – now I’m starting to think they might have been right.

The Problem is, this picture perfect image is slowly being shattered. I am slowly realizing how shitty men can be. I am realizing that love alone isn’t enough to sustain a relationship. My bubble is slowly but surely getting penetrated by the evilness of reality.

I always envisioned myself in that love bubble where it’s all butterflies and fairy dust. I understand that every relationship experiences wobbly legs and rocky roads but I always thought that prince charming and I would deal with these in more civil and loving ways—for lack of a better term.

I’ve always been stubborn with my heart. And rightfully so, I’m coming to realize. The older I get, the more that I am forced to take off those rose-colored glasses. You can’t help but think that way when some of the closest male-figures in your life do exactly the opposite of what you anticipated this impeccable version of your prince charming to do, especially when different parts of that fictitious idol were based on them.

So you’re left with two voices in your head. One voice, the hopeless romantic, keeps telling you to be stubborn with your heart, to stay selfish till you find your perfect man, the one who will sweep you off of your feet, the one who will be so immensely in love with you, the one who will want to spend every second of his life trying to make you happy, the one you’ll go to with any problems, the one who will make you feel worth it, like you’re the best thing that could happen to him.

Then of course there’s the other voice, the grown up, that keeps telling you how naïve you’ve been all this time, how you should lower your standards, how you might as well just catch one while you can, how your perfectionism is the reason you’re lonely, how finding someone you can simply just tolerate will be good enough, how most of the guys in your life have exhibited the exact characteristics that you used to associate with bad men, how this fairytale you’re hoping for is merely just that…a fairytale.

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Submission by Lina Shaker

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Painting by Catrin Walz Stein

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