Why does the modern day woman infatuate over fictional characters?

Women's hearts were once occupied with wonder and yearning for Mr Darcy but as times change it appears so do women's taste. Nowadays Mr Grey is the new fascination.

Why do women fall madly and irrevocably in love with fictional characters that cease to exist?

No wonder the armies of men find us so difficult to understand, do we even understand ourselves?

"It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife."

I remember the first time I read Pride and Prejudice I fell in love instantly. Mr Darcy in my opinion installed the need for a bad boy in me (no cheeky pun intended).

He is rude, abrasive, proud, mysterious and handsome and you can't help but want to tame him. But is it even possible to tame? Jane Austen certainly thought so but to be honest had Mr Darcy and Miss Bennet not ended up so passionately in love it wouldn't have made such a story and I would have sobbed into my pillow uncontrollably for quite sometime with deep disappointment and a fear that love is just a myth.

From a young age girls are set up to believe in fairytales, where the girl always gets the man. A knight in shining armour comes galloping in at the perfect moment and saves the girl from horror and dismay.

I believe in fairytales the same way I believe in magic, with longing hope, it inspires the mind and lets you believe that anything is possible. It opens the dark corners of your brain where the tax forms and other banal activities lie and let's your imagination run riot.

But when do you stop waiting on Mr Darcy, Mr Grey or Prince Charming (delete appropriate) ? Where do you draw the line under imagination and reality and accept the possibility that no man may ever live up to your expectations?

Perhaps that is why us women fall so deeply in love with the characters that we are never going to have. So when we have our heart broken we can return to these characters and believe that love is out there.

So dare to dream, Prince Charming is waiting, he may not be true to his fictional character, he may not be perfect, but he is real and he is yours.

"You know you're in love when you can't fall asleep because reality is finally better than your dreams"

Dr Seuss