I Blame Disney

Even as a small child, I was something of a boy-aholic. Not that I believe that to be a real term, but if it is, let me copyright it ASAP.

I’ve mentioned in previous articles that being educated in single sex schools my entire life made boys appear to me at least to be something of an exotic being. I was fascinated by them, ever curious and craving not just their friendship, but their attention. Yep, I was boy-crazy from day dot, and only a fatigue inducing chronic health condition has managed to somewhat dampen my focus on them.

Like every girl my age growing up in the nineties I loved Disney movies. To me the message in each one was clear: if you were pretty, thin, and had nice shiny hair, a Prince would fall madly in love with you. All you had to do was sit around in a castle tower/ glass coffin/your evil stepmother’s kitchen quarters, and eventually he would find you. And when he did, your life would be complete, and you would ride off into the sunset together happy and in love, preferably on horseback. The end.

I figured that this story arc was most certainly a blueprint for life, and so I set about confident in the idea that I would one day find my very own Prince Charming in human form. The thought that I might not find him never even crossed my mind. After all, a cartoon which was made specifically for children wouldn’t lie!

As a child, I fancied pretty much every boy I met. Even if they were teenage boys ten years older than me, who already had facial hair and wouldn’t have looked twice at some small slight seven year old in floral leggings. I was fascinated with romance and would regularly practice kissing my pillow at night so that, when the time came to kiss someone in real life, I would be prepared. 

Once on a Christmas vacation, I played Cops And Robbers with my cousins friends, and got a bit too excited when one of them ‘abducted’ me and took me into his underground lair (which was actually the spare bedroom at my grandparents house.) Was this my first foray into fantasy role play? Probably. All I know is that when he tied my hands up rather vigorously with a dressing gown cord, I felt very, very excited and had absolutely no idea why. The game was abandoned about thirty minutes later (it turned out my cousins friends were much more interested in playing Touch Rugby in the garden) and I was bereft that the game was over.

My advances towards the opposite sex even as a child were somewhat, shall we say, forceful and enthusiastic. At age four and a half, I remember locking my childhood best friend Jonathan Darby in his parents downstairs toilet and refusing to let him out until he agreed to kiss me on the lips. After about thirty five minutes of protestation, Jonathan eventually agreed. The kiss was underwhelming but, hey, I got what I wanted, and no doubt traumatised poor Jonathan in the process.  In fact, I’m pretty sure Jonathan is gay now, and I hope that my sexual molestation of him did not leave any lasting scars. Nowadays, children would be cautioned for that sort of non-consensual behaviour.

I was fascinated with sex and the things grown ups did behind closed doors. Or at least the things I imagined they did. At night, if my parents were watching a 15 rated movie blockbuster downstairs over dinner (on VHS tape of course, as was done back in those days) and I thought that there might be some on screen snogging involved, I would flat out beg them to let me watch it with them. Occasionally, I was allowed a brief glimpse of some waif-like Hollywood actress being objectified on camera, before being sent back to bed and told not to come downstairs again.

I grew up on Hollywood movies, watching Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman make so sweeping an entrance at a dinner party or Opera gathering, that even Richard Gere might be torn away from his bullish world of hostile company takeovers and billionaire business ventures for five minutes.

Clearly love was so powerful that it could make even the most unpleasant and self involved of men in to lovesick puppies! It could turn women in to princesses and bridge the boundaries of high society. Love knew no bounds or postcode divisions!

When Rett Butler swept Scarlett O’Hara up in her big hooped skirt in Gone With The Wind, their rivalries and arguments were forgotten. No disagreement, no matter how passionate or important, could be remembered when love and lust was in the air.

I wanted to grow up to become the sort of woman who tore men’s attention away from whatever high stakes activity they were involved in, just like all the A list actresses did in those scripted (and highly choreographed) movies.

The fact that what I was seeing was both scripted and FICTIONAL didn't cross my mind. I genuinely assumed that rom-coms were a reflection of real life. I genuinely believed that love conquered all and that once you found your special person, you would be happy and content forever, no questions asked.

To me the adult world, or specifically adult relations, seemed totally exhilarating and exciting. The thought that I might one day be mature enough to fall in love with a man and ‘snog’ him, on his mouth, felt immense. I wouldn’t have to force him to do it either, the way I had with poor Jonathan. No, he would want to snog me because he was obsessed with me, just like Tom Hanks was obsessed with Meg Ryan in ‘You’ve Got Mail and Captain Von Trap was obsessed with the virginal nun Maria in Sound Of Music.

I looked forward to that time in my life in the way that most children of that age look forward to the arrival of Santa Claus. I’ll admit, I wasn’t too interested in the biological/functional aspect of sex. I didn’t want to know anything too sordid about intercourse or penetration or even (heaven forbid!) body parts. I just wanted to see hot, beautiful, nicely dressed people wrapped in each others arms, and walking off into the sunset together. 

I’m still not that interested in the body parts of it all, FYI. I still find penises deeply unattractive (sorry, but no thought at all went into THAT design) and to this day when a man gets naked in front of me I feel a little squeamish. It’s all just a bit too… “there”. Give me corsets, doublets and tousled blouses over real live body parts any day of the week.

As a teenager, I often wondered what having a boyfriend would be like. The idea that there was a boy out there, somewhere in the World, who I hadn’t even met yet, and who would want to spend time with me over any other girl seemed totally crazy. At that point, no boy even wanted to date me, let alone ask me to be his girlfriend, but I figured that, statistically speaking, it was bound to happen to me one day because it happens to everyone. 

But as the years passed, and the majority of my friends got asked to be ‘exclusive’ with one boy or another, I got the ever increasing sense that I was being left behind. Perhaps I wasn’t pretty or interesting enough to be anyone’s girlfriend. Perhaps I was too difficult, too funny, too… opinionated? For whatever reason, guys didn’t gel with me ‘in that way.’ They saw me as funny, quirky and slightly weird, and definitely not as girlfriend material. For starters, I didn’t have a stellar face or a cute nose or huge boobs to recommend me (which, let’s face it, are the prerequisite qualities for any woman to be desirable anywhere on the planet.) Rather I had average looks and a body so slim and slender that, from behind in a pair of jeans and a hoodie, I looked like a teenage boy.

As I attended house party after house party, and received no interest from any boys in the vicinity, I began losing hope in the idea that I might ever be somebody’s girlfriend. Maybe it just wouldn’t happen for me. Maybe I was the exception to the norm.

Over time of course, I did get a boyfriend, in my first week of University at Exeter. Finally, I could experience what all the other girls my age were experiencing! A loving relationship! The feeling of being a man’s sole priority and focus. The joy of being sexual and desirable. The excitement of monogamy: (meeting parents, exchanging Christmas presents. Cooking in the kitchen. Going to the grocery store. Etc.)

My first boyfriend was lovely enough and for a first relationship he ticked almost all the boxes I could have required. He was handsome, muscular, kind, intelligent. Okay, so he was a little on the boring/non-funny side, but that was okay. I could be the funny one in the relationship! Our kids would inherit my humour and his six pack.

Things took a downward turn in the dating department after Uni. I had hoped to emerge as a single woman, ready to launch myself into the London romance scene and find a hottie for myself. But leaving the shelter of University campus and entering the big wide world of dating wasn't the eventful enterprise I thought it would be. For starters, I was penniless and didn’t have the money to go out on dates, much less hang out in the types of places where one might find a man to date in the first place. 

I worked in a bar for four months after graduation, and met a plethora of men that way instead. Some interesting, attractive and well meaning. Others less so. By the time I got a job in Advertising, Tinder had been invented and suddenly this was the new way to meet people! None of that ‘catching the eye of someone in a pub or dentist's office’ nonsense, now it was ‘swipe right if you like this six-pack.’ Happy days.

I took to Tinder like a duck to water. Every spare moment I had to myself, in the bathroom, en route to work, I was swiping on that app. I connected with more men through my phone than I had ever even met in real life.

 I went on every date I was asked on, only to have one bad experience after another. It turns out that being single is not like living in a rom com starring Reese Witherspoon. It’s more like being in a horror movie, only instead of an axe wielding murderer trying to kill you, it’s an investment banker with commitment issues and one boring ski chalet story after another. (And yes, before you ask, it is possible to be killed slowly by boredom and cheap glasses of vodka cranberry.)

After many god-awful dates, I met Mikey, who seemed to me at least to be the diamond in the ruff. Handsome and well educated, he was a political speech writer at a private sector company in Soho. He drank whiskey. He was well travelled. He owned a kimono. I was totally in awe of him. On our first date we met at a wine bar and the conversation felt so electric, I thought ‘if this guy asked me to marry him right now, honestly I think I’d say yes.’

Afterwards we went for dinner, and as I sat across from him that night, sharing French fries and oysters at Jackson Rye, I remember thinking that I could sit across from this man for the rest of my life.

I fell for Mikey harder than I had ever fallen for anyone in my entire life. After one month, I felt more strongly for him than I had ever felt for my Uni boyfriend, and I’d been with him for three years! 

Mikey was so sophisticated and intelligent, I couldn’t help feeling slightly starstruck in his presence. Aloof and charismatic, charming to all who met him, it turned out that Mikey was more interested in his own pursuits than he was in forging a lasting relationship with me. Perhaps I bored him. Perhaps I wasn’t intelligent enough for him. Either way, Mikey pulled away from me which of course only made me hold on tighter. Like a leech that couldn’t take a hint, I couldn’t bear the thought of letting Mikey go. Or, being ‘let go of’ if we’re going to get technical about things.

After Mikey unceremoniously dumped me one Sunday afternoon in Covent Garden, I figured, ‘That’s it. I’m never dating again. I’m never going to meet anyone I like this much ever again and I might as well accept it.’

As friends from Uni made the slow migration towards London, the social scene began to heat up. My job in Advertising was overwhelming me, and everywhere I looked my friends were coupling off with new boyfriends who thought them the greatest thing since sliced bread.

No one thought much of me at all. I was (I still am) the perpetually single girl.

Occasionally I went on dates with men I actually liked. The only problem being that they didn’t like me back. Was I too picky? Was I too needy? Was I looking for all the wrong things? Was I captivated by men who were unkind and selfish? Yes. To all of the above.

I had the confidence and self-esteem of a crushed snail. I didn’t know who I was or what I stood for. I was constantly anxious, and het up about something or other. I probably wasn't much fun to be around.

I met more guys I liked. Not as much as I liked Mikey, but enough to make me feel like perhaps I shouldn’t abandon romance after all.

But they didn’t last long either. I was regularly ghosted, ignored, or forgotten by men I’d been dating for months and should have remembered me. Presumably they’d found someone better, and decided to move on. It happened so often and so out of the blue, that I gave up trusting anything a man said to me at all.  Clearly, Cinderella and Snow White did not have these problems when they were trying to find a partner. 

When I got sick with M.E and began dating again, I figured I’d had enough of men treating me badly. I’d been through too much shit, and suffered for too long, to settle for rubbish behaviour from the opposite sex. Now at the slightest whiff of untrustworthy-ness, I'm out. I don’t put up with men who don’t respect me.

You might say my behaviour is cut throat. But I don’t care. If a guy makes me second guess his character or feelings for me then it’s already too late to turn things around. 

Now, I’ve given up on meeting Mr Right. I will settle for Mr Good Enough Right Now. The traditional ‘marriage and kids’ timeline obviously isn’t for me.

There are no Prince Charming’s out there, just lots of disgruntled and dissatisfied Princesses.

My seven-year-old self would be devastated.