The Love Particle

                                                            Are chick flicks dangerous?

Love is all chemicals. We know that. And yet we crave it. We love to get lost in its magical aspects. Pondering over those never changing questions: Does he like me? Am I his type? What should I say? What should I wear? We're addicted to romance. Walking hand in hand, receiving sweet text messages and accepting flowers on anniversaries. It fills our stomach with butterflies that flutter either briefly, for quite a while or forever. And we just can't get enough. What is it about this fairy tale that makes it so desirable? Are we stuck in some phase that makes us believe we're a princess about to be saved by a knight in shining armour? And if he arrives, on horseback naturally, how do we recognise him? How are we to know he's not the villain of our fairy tale? Men do not speak their mind (like we do). They hate that one question: What are you thinking? Their motives are only discovered too late.

So when our princess is locked up in a tall tower with only her long, curly hair for a rope, what are we to do? We wait for our Prince Charming. But we're not patient. We give in to temptation and settle for the Prince's understudy. A handsome, nice enough chap who's fun to be with. But something's missing. It's that ''thing''. That spark - whatever the Hell that is. And the longer we fool ourselves into thinking he's worth staying with, the more flaws we notice. It might be something as insignificant as a loud, embarrassing laugh or bad table manners. But small flaws are soon magnified and they stomp over our hopes and dreams like an elephant in a rage. So we part ways. It's what we do. And the search continues. But how many people find their own Mr. Darcy or even their own Hugh Grant (in Notting Hill mind you, not Bridget Jones)?

We've seen too many chick flicks. Our kisses aren't accompanied by an Oscar-nominated musical score and our sex scenes don't end with the morning-after euphoria of breakfast in bed - at least most of us don't get that lucky. Our kisses are more of a ''what the hell is he doing'' and we awake the next morning thinking; where did he go? And love at first sight, that most dangerous myth of all, exists only in fiction. We tell ourselves the men we go out with share our hopes and fears, but do they? When all is said and done, how can we separate the perverts from the princes? How do we know they don't just want to get in our pants? We talk to them. And then there's the smooth ones. The ones who've had the most practise - the masters of seduction. At least Casanova was interesting. Most of his successors shouldn't even be allowed to stand in his shadow.

Fan-favourite Spike: the suitor we face in real life. 

And still....we don't give up. Why? Because we've been fed the myth of romance since childood. How did it get started? With Barbie (an anatomically perfect blonde babe) and Ken (a sexually challenged surfer dude). And then there's the inescapably sweet Disney classics. So in retrospect, there's only one thing we can do to forget about our singleton woes: we should sue Disney and hit the town with our girlfriends. It's time for a good rant. Until our next victim stops by that is. Love is pain. Even more so when we realise the love we felt was a fantasy. They say chocolate causes the same effect in the brain as an orgasm. So perhaps we should stock up on sweets until Mr. Right sweeps us off our feet.