To all the fan-girls out there who are in constant state of agony from the unobtainable hunky dreamboats in literature, I feel your pain all too well. Damn those Young Adult fictional men who ruined me for real men since my adolescent years. Even without real boyfriend experience, I knew that no actual teenage male could ever hold a candle to the slow burn of Peeta Mellark from The Hunger Games, the flaming heat of Augustus Waters from The Fault in our Stars and the roaring inferno of Tobias “Four” Eaton from the Divergent series. So, the next time a boy walks up to me and tries an overused cheesy pick up line, be warned. I know exactly how perfect and passionate I want my life partner to be and you will probably never make the mark.
Even the classic literary men from Jane Austen’s, Emily Bronte’s and Charlotte Bronte’s universes continue to ruin me. Mr. Darcy matched Elizabeth perfectly through wit and owned up to his mistakes by the end. Can you imagine any guy, in real life, realizing his mistake without the female telling him exactly what he did wrong? Never! Mr. Rochester could look beyond Jane’s financial conditions to realize her inner beauty and gentle humanity. Even Tyrion Lannister from the Games of Thrones television series, not a standard cookie-cutter model, has got the wit, loyalty and bravery to woo any lady in Westeros. With all these utterly perfect men from classic tales and young adult series with perfectly endowed bodies and great intelligence, how could we fan-girls possibly not be ruined. Not to mention, they worship the ground on which the expectation-defying female protagonist in the book walks on. Their only flaw is that they seem to exist only in books.
Thus, a whole generation of fan-girls have grown up falling head over heels for these fictional men.
Coming back to reality consists of the huge book hangover and tons of feels that don’t go away even with tons of chocolate and hugs. Some may say that these men don’t exist in real life because their traits aren’t realistic in our modern society. But if socially progressive and defiant women from the books can exist today like Ellen Page, Melissa McCarthy, Ellen DeGeneres and Laverne Cox, surely we can hope that men can put their heads together to figure out what us fan-girls desire and deserve today. Thus, we pray every day that either the fictional gods stop writing about these perfect men or that we actually get to meet someone who will meet our ridiculous standards and don’t toy with our emotions any longer.