Maybe Prince Charming Doesn’t Want A Fucking Princess

You have spent your entire life creating him in your head, your Stepford partner. He is both sensitive and stoic and always at the perfect times because he is your soulmate and can thus read your mind. He is responsible and conscientious but also spontaneous with a sense of adventure. This man is your partner but also your best friend, your rock throughout good and bad. You will build a life with this man (as soon as he proposes after no more than two years) and raise two children, whose names you have already picked out. He will be knowledgeable but also creative, with his career also being his passion. You also have a Pinterest board of paint swatches and bohemian-themed living room designs ready for the beautiful home you will raise your family in. Countless hours of romantic comedies filled with made-for-TV moments have come together to form your idea of the perfect partner. Your future husband is your knight in shining armor, your dream come true, your Prince Charming, and after all of your patience, you may find that he has no interest in a princess.

When you find a partner that possesses everything that you’ve ever wanted, you better make damn sure that you have something to offer. The days in which men longed for a helpless maiden to care for are coming to an end and women need to rise to the occasion. Coasting through life drinking Starbucks and doing hot yoga, simply waiting for someone to love you is not personal growth or development. Very few individuals work hard their entire lives to establish themselves financially and spiritually to then take in stray women aspiring to be Instagram models. Being a princess is archaic in a developing social market in which respect, equality, and independence are the new currencies.

Men of the new era do not care that you can make salads in mason jars or perfectly contour your cheekbones; they want self-sustaining women. Women that can live independently, not wait for a man to buy them a house and pay their bills. Women that have pursued their own passions and have established their identities, rather than texting him all day while he is at work like some emotional parasite. They desire women that severed ties with boredom and live meaningful lives. Women that have goals and dreams beyond staying home to clean the kitchen and bake cherry pies in floral aprons. Women that do not depend on another to be whole, happy, and successful. Women that are warriors, not fucking princesses.

If you want a “prince” that is knowledgeable, well-educated, passionate, and kind with a sense of humor then you better be sure that you can ante up. No man should work hard to establish a career and create a life for himself so that a dependent damsel can survive off of his successes in the name of “true love.” Similarly, someone that has worked hard to overcome emotional challenges wants another stable partner, not a neurotic woman on the verge of 30, losing her mind because her “clock is ticking,” waiting for almost anyone to hump a baby into her and put a ring on it.

Rather than focusing on what you want in a partner, consider what you yourself have to give. Be sure to enter the relationship with your identity intact and an idea of what you want out of life other than being someone’s counterpart. A relationship is not two halves making a whole, that is interdependency, it is two whole individuals that complement one another’s existence. Along the same lines, happily ever after is not a rag to riches story in which wayward women are whisked away to suburbia to get prematurely married and then inevitably divorced once Prince Charming grows tired of the princess bullshit. It is not a man’s job to make you feel safe and quiet your insecurities. It is not a man’s job to save or constantly support a woman. It is not a man’s job to slip glass slippers on the feet of unworthy women; he deserves a happily ever after, too.