Disney movies put a false sense of hope into my mind when I was a little girl. From the time I was four until I was ten, I thought that my true love would really show up on a white horse and save me from plight I called my life. As I reached adolescence, I went through some hard times and no knight in shining armor rescued me.

I began to think that I was never going to find true love. Sure I was only sixteen, but it seemed as though everyone around me was dating and I was the oddball. I didn’t want to date though. I honestly believed that the first guy I dated would fall madly in love with me and I with him. He would serenade me and from the moment our eyes locked, we knew that we’d live happily ever after.

There were a few guys that I liked. I formed friendships with them and began picturing a future with one of them. He was older than me by 6 years and even fit the description. Tall, dark, handsome, charming, and a Marine, Sean could have been my white knight. As I spent more and more time with him, I even began to fall in love. He was everything I was looking for and more. I had finally found my one true love. See there was just this one little thing- he perceived me as a younger sister. Strike one. I tried to tell myself that giving him time to see my true colors would make him fall for me. So I waited; I mean, none of the princesses had to wait, but at least I had someone now. I wasn’t doing too bad.

While I was waiting on Mr. Right, I had a close friend who I had an innocent crush on. Joe and I had known each other a few years, and from the moment we met, I had thought he was cute. But I didn’t have an instant flash of wedding bells and raising children shoot through my mind. He didn’t really fit the description of the reigning knights either. Short, pale, and rather unkempt; he was shy and self-conscious. I told myself that he wasn’t The One, and focused on molding myself to be everything that Sean wanted. Strike two.

I graduated high school and moved 3 hours away to live with my cousins. I just happened to move into the same town as Joe. He had a girlfriend now, and I was happy for him. All I could think about was Sean and how I didn’t have him. I spiraled into a depression that no one could get me out of. Few people even knew that I was having problems. I felt pathetic, here I was, and eighteen year old girl who basically lived for romance, and I hadn’t even had my first kiss yet. Sean was talking to me less frequently and that only made things worse.

Even through everything, Joe was there though. His girlfriend lived 5 hours away and they’d only met a few times, but he seemed like he was in love. Maybe it was that he had what I wanted, but I began to thrive on the time I spent with Joe. I craved it, I needed it. And when he wasn’t there, the depression sunk in.

Sean suddenly ceased contact with me altogether. Strike three. I was crushed, my heart broken, and I never even dated him. I began falling for Joe. I didn’t care that he didn’t look like a knight. I didn’t deserve someone like that; I wasn’t good enough to be a princess.

Joe, however, wasn’t available. And even if he were, I’m sure he wouldn’t have been interested in me. It took me twelve years to realize that life isn’t a fairytale. There were no castles or enchanted lands. No one was going to come in on a white horse and ride away with me into the sunset. Since I was a four year old girl, twirling in my pigtails and pink tutu, all I wanted was to fall in love and be held in the arms of the one I dreamt about. Now I was at the lowest of lows- I believed that love didn’t exist.

There was still Joe. And there was still his girlfriend. I’d had it though, I just didn’t care anymore. I told him how I felt and wasn’t even afraid of rejection. In fact, I was expecting it. So when he told me that he liked me too, I was fascinated. Why? I clearly didn’t have any good points or Sean would at least be talking to me. It felt good to know that I wasn’t the biggest loser in the world, even though I still couldn’t have Joe. But we had turned over a new leaf in our relationship. We were more open when we talked. I wasn’t feeling any better, however. I actually got worse; there was finally a possibility of love for me, I had it in my grasp, but I couldn’t have it.

Then, in a series of events far too complicated to explain, Joe broke up with his girlfriend. It turns out that she was never who he thought she was and she wasn’t the nicest of people. I spent the next week comforting him in the best ways that I could; talking, offering him a hug or a smile.

He asked me out soon after that and we spent literally every day of the summer together. It might have been the nights in the back of his truck under the stars, or the days we just laid in the grass together, but somewhere along the way, I fell in madly love with him. Sure he didn’t fit the description, but I loved him for his quirkiness and faults. Joe wasn’t a knight. He was a prince.

And, yes, I finally got my happily ever after.