John Y’s Musings from the Middle: Prince Charming

Re-thinking old assumptions and Prince Charming.

We go through life locked in to certain beliefs, goals and aspirations. That is fine but many of the beliefs we carry with us at ages 20,30, 40 and beyond are based on subconscious decisions we made when we were children. We adopted a belief about ourselves, the world and what we wanted to do in life and, in many instances, have never pulled out those beliefs and looked at them from an adult perspective. Maybe they were good assumptions we made about life and we decide, as an adult, to keep that belief. But others won’t be as sensible to our grown-up selves as they seemed when we were, say, age 10.

Think about Prince Charming. Ladies this is for you. We men are told that all women want to marry a Prince Charming.

I am now into my 21st year of marriage to my wonderful wife, Rebecca. She once told me when we were dating all women, including her, want to marry Prince Charming. I said, “Really? Think about it. Have you ever seen pictures of the guy? He looks boring and kinda like a dandy (this was before “metrosexual” was term).”

“Sure,” I conceded, “he was handsome but what would you talk about after the first date? Probably him. It would be all about him. You can tell by looking at him. Do you really want that?”

I honestly can’t remember anything else about that conversation. It probably ended then. My real goal was to set the bar much lower for me than Prince Charming so I could step over it. I did successfully set the bar lower. Whether I have stepped over it or not is a question only Rebecca can answer. But at least I’m not a “Dandy”