Christen Grey and Anastasia Steel. Noah Calhoun and Allie Hamilton. Will Traynor and Louisa Clark. Mr. Big and Carrie Bradshaw. Danny Zuko and Sandy Olsson. The Joker and Harley Quinn.

If you're like me (or any other typical girl) I'm sure you're pretty familiar with more than one of those characters. Love stories are the best stories. There's something about watching a fictional couple fall in love that just never gets old. As humans, we love love.

But I've noticed a problem with the way Hollywood and the most popular love stories portray what love is.

In "50 Shades of Grey," love is an abusive, overbearing, controlling man with deep-rooted issues that appear in the form of his sexual perversions.

In "The Notebook," love is when a young man is separated from his girlfriend and spends the next ten years sleeping with other women, drinking, obsessively working on his ex-girlfriends dream house and then helping the said ex-girlfriend cheat on her fiance. Notice, her ring is in plain site in the iconic poster.

In "Grease," love is a guy who cares more about his reputation than the girl he "loves," which results in the girl changing who she is in order for the guy to even admit he likes her to his friends.

In "Suicide Squad," love is torturing someone to fall in love with you, toying with their brain to the point of literal insanity, pimping them out to clients and leaving them for dead multiple times. The Joker and Harley Quinn's relationship is NOT cute, it's downright abusive and disgusting.

I could keep going with the examples but I think you get the point. None of these characters were able to show a true picture of love and that's a huge problem. My generation and the generations after me have been and will be highly influenced by what we see in movies and what is popular on social media. Hollywood has a huge influence on us and in forming our opinions on just about anything and that's a very dangerous thing. Too many times I've seen movies or read books where the woman changes or loses herself to keep the "man of her dreams" and the audience is fully supportive because it's a love story.

Fictional characters are not perfect and should not be where we get our ideas of love from and yet, we soak up the newest love story because it's so "perfect."

A real man should lead, provide and protect as well as understand, support and encourage. A man who truly loves you will not ever try to change you (unless it's for the best), pressure you or disrespect you. A real man will put you first and make sure you're taken care of. A real man will encourage and push you to be your very best. A real man will pursue you, even after you're together.

Love is not changing yourself. Love is not being with other people until you can be with the person you really want. Love is not pulling the other person down and making them feel small. Love is not having to sign a contract. Love is not about being locked into some strange desperation with each other, hoping and praying that no one leaves.

In "Sex and the City," we watched Carrie Bradshaw be tossed around like a plaything by Mr. Bigg. He only wanted her when he wanted her and she was only allowed to be a certain way. If it was love, he would have decided he wanted her and only her and accepted her for who she was, not who he wanted her to be.

In "Me Before You" we watched Will Traynor profess his love to Louisa Clark and then shatter her by deciding he wanted to die. That isn't love, that's selfishness. I realize his circumstances were nowhere near ideal, but she was willing to be with him regardless of his condition. But instead of staying alive for her, he decided he wanted to die and she had to watch. The most twisted thing about that story is the fact that you actually find yourself agreeing with his decision because he still "loves" her and he helped her break out of her shell.

I don't know about you but I'd rather have a man like Mr. Darcy ("Pride and Prejudice"), Landon Carter ("A Walk to Remember"), Gerry ("P.S. I Love You"), Leo ("The Vow"), or George Bailey ("It's a Wonderful Life"). Granted, none of these fictional men were perfect either but they did a heck of a lot better job at showing what real love looks like than any of the previously mentioned characters.

Of course, if you want the true and ultimate definition of love, just read John 3:16.

That, my friends, is what real love looks like.