Happily ever after, Part II

Cinderella: Why, it's like a dream. A wonderful dream

come true.

Fairy Godmother: Yes, my child, but like all dreams, well, I'm afraid this can't last forever.

At an early age, Disney movies made their impressions, and as gullible little girls, we were impressed. I'm talking, of course, about the allure of the Fairy Tale and the false dream that, when it comes to men, women can have it all.

Duke is a social culture that pulls both ways. To quote Katie Roiphe in her book The Morning After, as women, we haven't lost the dream of the casual sexual encounter or forgotten the notion of free love.

But we also remember-in vivid, unrelenting detail-the Fairy Tale. We remember that Cinderella ends up with Prince Charming, that Ariel gets legs (and her voice back) to be with Prince Eric and that it takes all of two days to fall in love.

Reasonably, little girls hooked on Disney become grown women who believe in Prince Charming. All they have to do is wait for him. It just so happens that while in limbo (read: purgatory), some women wait for Prince Charming at elite universities, with the hope that he will be a man with deep pockets and a promising career.

But Duke, like most undergraduate campuses with a party-hard reputation, is not a school that fosters this Fairy Tale. In terms of relationships-even purely sexual ones-there seems to be a binary: The needy woman vs. the needed man; the girl who ditches her friends to be with the guy vs. the guy who ditches the girl to be with his friends; and the woman who wants intimacy vs. the man who just wants to wham, bam, thank-you-ma'am her.

The fact that many women still avidly look for husbands and love signals that they obviously believe in-want-the Fairy Tale. Many of us want to be loved, married and pregnant, even at the cost of our careers, and even though past experience has taught us otherwise. For every one relationship that worked-or ended pleasantly-there have been at least a dozen relationships that ended in dreadful heartbreak.

The pattern is recognizable: We give our bodies, our hearts and ourselves completely, and we believe the flattery and false promises, as though we've never heard them before. In the end, we are disappointed, we give up and then, we give ourselves a few weeks (or months) to mend the battle (and bedroom) wounds.

But once that time frame passes, we go back like moths (and like idiots) to the flame.

Why do women keep going back to the Fairy Tale, despite the fact that it consistently comes back to bite women in the ass?

The answer is simple.

Although reality tells us differently, we desperately want the dream to be real.

We still have faith in Prince Charming, his white horse (or limo) and the Disney myth that true love (not a Ph.D.) conquers all.

For one reason or another, we still haven't ditched the wide-eyed notion that men have pure intentions, or the hope that our next hookup-no matter how drunk or dissatisfying-might just be with the Prince we've been waiting for.

We're smart Duke women, not na've schoolgirls, and at least cognitively, we know better.

Those people who know me will often hear me say that I don't believe in love. The truth is, although I believe that love exists, I don't believe that it's a Fairy Tale.

I say the following not as a romantic atheist, but as a romantic realist: As women, we must give up-or rewrite-the myth of a Fairy Tale romance.

On at least one count, Cinderella's Fairy Godmother was right.

At some point, the dream has to end.

Shadee Malaklou is a Trinity senior. Her column runs every other Wednesday.