Searching for Prince Charming

Every other Thursday, I meet with women at a coffee shop.This isn’t a dating service, I can assure you. I am a part of a writers’ group, and for the last two weeks, it’s been a bunch of wonderful women—and me. I didn’t orchestrate it this way; it just happened.I joined the group because I wanted to become a better writer. But God had other plans. God, full of mystery, sent me to this group also to learn about something else.He sent me to learn about women.I will be the first to admit that I haven’t always respected women the way they deserve to be respected, and I haven’t always been a gentleman. I’ve been described as a playboy, and other vocabulary that I wouldn’t want in print.But I’m learning. Slowly, I’m learning.I drive forty miles every other week to read my stories—a deluge of emotion on paper—to these ladies. As I was driving to our last meeting, an old song came on the radio. It was Janet Jackson’s “Come Back to Me.”Come back to me/I’m beggin’ you please/Come back to me/I want you to…The lyrics harken back to a time of idyll in music history, and a time when I wasn’t jaded and still firmly believed in true love. As I was listening to the song, I wondered why modern music rarely addresses these themes anymore. I wondered if all the romantic songs were sung out. I wondered if romance has become stale and cheesy. I wondered if the amorousness of “Come back to me” had become glib, giving way to more sublime topics as revenge (“Before He Cheats” by a Louisville slugger-wielding Carrie Underwood), relief (“Since U Been Gone” by Kelly Clarkson), and salty break-ups and screw-yous (“We are Never Getting Back Together” by Taylor Swift; “Wrecking Ball” by Miley Cyrus).Today’s music is more concerned with “Blurred Lines,” promiscuity, and shock. Forget Elvis. Forget “Can’t Help Falling in Love.” Give me GaGa, and lots of it! Give me the saccharine, lollipop lyrics of Katy Perry all night long, people! Even the once love struck Janet changed as the years marched on, as Rhythm Nation began to march to a new beat. She went from “Let’s Wait a While” to not waiting (at all) to expose nipple on national TV.Modern media and music often portray men as weak, bumbling, chauvinistic, beer-bathed Neanderthal narcissists. Rarely do you see a true gentleman on TV anymore. Rarely do you see Andy Griffith, Ward Cleaver, or Cliff Huxtable. And in many ways, the media has gotten it right. Men have forgotten about romance. Romance is cheesy. Romance isn’t cool.In America, we claim to be great advocates of women, but can we say that there is anywhere else in the world where women more exploited? It’s hypocrisy run amok. One doesn’t have to wait very long for a sultry TV commercial to pop up on the screen, and we are all a mere one click away. We are enthralled at the angel-winged Victoria’s Secret models as they strut down runways; go goo-goo for apple bottom jeans; and know what it means to “Superman that hoe.” It’s devaluation at its finest.I bought in to the lie that a “man” was someone who could score. A “man” was defined by the notches on his belt. A “man” was defined by the degree of hotness on his arm (Look, Abe Lincoln was no less of a man because he had Mary Todd Lincoln by his side than Tommy Lee is because he scored Pam Anderson). I have bought into the lies and fantasies of pornography, the untruths of lust. Even now I am struggling to forego lust for love, and let me tell you—it is VERY difficult being a single man, and alone.Lust is easy. Lust wields quick results. Lust is cool. Why? Because being a gentleman is out. De-yahd. Holding the car door open for a date? Embarrassing. Waiting until marriage to have sex? Archaic, ignorant, impossible, unrealistic, “unnatural.”Being a bad boy? In.Totally in.At writers’ group, when I posed this question about romantic music to the bunch, one of the ladies went into a soliloquy about what women want. And truthfully, I needed to hear it more than anyone. She passionately talked about Prince Charming, about knights riding in on stallions to sweep the fair maidens off their feet, about handkerchiefs and covering mud puddles with capes and such. She ably described how women, because their innate desire to be romanced is not being fulfilled, search for romance in books and in movies (reading Twilight and the like). It’s why they read chesty romance novels. It’s why they watch soap operas.Women want romance. Women want Richard Gere coming to get Julia Roberts, with his torso hanging out of the sunroof of the limo.“Where did that go?” she wondered.At that moment, I felt a tremendous sense of guilt overcome me. I hadn’t been anyone’s Prince Charming. At best, I was Prince Charles, ceremoniously waiting to be crowned the “King of Relationship” instead of lowering myself to become an attendant servant. Ego and my macho nature had always taken over, and it had been all about me.Even when I thought I was being compassionate, really all I wanted to do was fix things and move on.Our nature causes us to be fixers (I was saddened to hear that Coldplay’s Chris Martin couldn’t ultimately “Fix You” and that his marriage to Gwyneth Paltrow might end in divorce). It made me think about a great piece of advice a friend gave me one time that is one of the most profound things I’ve ever heard. He said, “Sometimes, women don’t want us to fix things. They just want us to listen, and to give them a hug. So, there are times when we need to ask, ‘Do you want me to give you a solution, or do you just want me to listen?’”Men, we need to get in touch with our romantic side, or else, we’re through. We need to be reawakened to the importance of behaving like a gentleman (Gosh, I so need to hear this). We need to stop trying to always be fixers, and concentrate on being listeners. Instead of being the Dark Knight looking to slay anything that moves, perhaps we should become that chivalrous, hand-kissing knight, drenched in amour.Let’s pursue romance. Let’s pursue love. Let’s be Casanova at La Casa. Let’s be Richard Gere and discover that a woman is a prize, not a prostitute. 78