Dear women in love with the idea of love,

I'm sorry that I have to be the one to open your eyes to the truth, but due to moral obligation I find no other choice. So here it goes (insert light beam and heavenly voices here): true romantic love, as we know it, as we have been told it is, doesn't exist.

It has taken me my first heartbreak to fully realize this and to be able to set it forth formally before all of you. Of course, I was already convinced of it even before I fell in love (or so I thought) for the first time. In fact, I even wrote a final paper on the whole thing for my English class in high school. However, asserting categorically that true love as we know it doesn't exist before ever having a boyfriend or any kind of loving relationship (but careful, I'm not talking about other types of love, like the love for family), would have been similar to saying that I didn't like a certain kind of food before even trying it. But now, I've tried it and what a fraud and disappointing of a dish.

First of all, I'd like to blame Hollywood and Disney for the brainwash that the population of the world (and more specially us, the females, who are the most eager to believe in the "big lie", as I'm going to call it) has been subjected to for a good century. The industry, and consequently the society we live in (since the film and arts industry has a huge influence on every aspect of it), has made us believe the following: that true love is out there, waiting for us to find it.

They have made us believe that there is a " the one" for each of us, our own fabulous and absolutely perfect prince charming. And also that once we find him we'll be ultimately happy, because he's just perfect, made for that person. Some people will call it soulmates. From that moment on, he will have no need to look at or pay attention to any other woman, because she is all he can see, and he'll look at her like a blind person who sees the sun for the very first time. He'll cherish her, adore her, put her life before his. Even if, for some reason she takes a flight and leaves, he'll run after her, chase her through the airport and stop the whole thing just to find her and take her back. They will marry soon, have half a dozen children, age together and once they are old and all wrinkled up like raisins, they'll die together holding hands, never letting each other go, not even in the afterlife (if there is one).

This, my reader, is the "big lie". It's a lie because it makes people believe not only that it can actually happen in real life beyond a movie (like, let's say, "The Notebook" or "Love Actually"), but that they should search for it, and don't take anything less than that. What does this bring to those who buy this? Mostly an enormous amount of pain, disappointment and frustration when they can't find that perfect love (because it doesn't exist!). Even our perception of our own self-worth suffers, because, if you can't achieve to find a person who supposedly loves every single detail of you, and that will love you unconditionally no matter what, is it so strange that one reaches the conclusion that there is something wrong with yourself, or that you aren't good enough for such a person?

A person who seeks the perfect romantic love that we have been implicitly convinced we need to find, won't be a happy person until they realize they have been searching for a cauldron of gold on the other side of the rainbow. It's just not real. The sooner we stop looking for it and stop trying to live in a movie, the sooner we'll stop suffering for nothing. However, one needs to be brave to face this situation, because, yes, it's much easier to live in ignorance and in a pleasant illusion than to face the harsh reality. But we all wake up in the morning and leave our dreams behind, right? So here's my message to all of you: wake up.

P.S. I know that some people will read this article and think to themselves: "oh, she's just hurting from her first relationship and she mistakenly thinks this is the way things work and that she'll never find true love. Just give her time to change her mind". Well, these people really need to wake up. I might be young and I might not have much experience in relationships, but I don't need more time or men to prove me right. I don't want to waste my time; do you want to waste yours?