HEARTLINES WHERE IS MY PRINCE CHARMING?

SEARCHING FOR YOUR OWN LIAM/CHANNING/PRINCE CHARMING TO BE THE LEAD IN YOUR HAPPILY EVER AFTER? LIZZA GEBILAGIN SHARES A FEW LOVE TRUTHS.

Perfect love is a montage of moments like these: wetting your boyfriend with a garden hose (why wouldn’t you? He’s Liam Hemsworth); play-arguing in the car as he belts out a soft-rock ballad; and him gazing at you as you impress him with your piano playing (because you’re Miley Cyrus – pre-twerking). And then, once the montage fades, the two of you live happily ever after. Sigh. How do we find a love like Miley and Liam’s in The Last Song? We know of at least one girl who tried. “My best friend was obsessed with The Last Song and wanted her relationship to be exactly like the movie,” says 19-yearold Tamara from Sydney. “She and her boyfriend played out scenes by running on the beach and jumping into each other’s arms. It got too much. They’re not together anymore. She put way too much pressure on the relationship to be perfect and didn’t appreciate it for what it was.”

That there is the start of an unsatisfying search for a type of love that’s only made for Hollywood. “When we meet somebody, we want to fall in love with an illusion and put off facing up to reality as long as possible,” says psychologist Dr Bruce Stevens from the University of Canberra. “Reality can never match the illusion, so we trade it in.”

This means Tamara’s bestie (and maybe even you?) ends up going from relationship to relationship, hoping that the next guy will be the permanent male lead in her happily-ever-after montages. “You keep recycling [partners], which keeps the illusion going, because the illusion is achievable ‘if only I find the right person’,” says Dr Stevens. So

SOURCE: HTTP://WWW.ELIST10.COM