Princesses and White Knights In our Midst...In Reality

What happens when princesses and white knights enter the current dating world?  And what if they're in a time and age of flux, like their 20's?

I've talked a lot about Saturn's Return in this blog, as I've been exploring how it's affected my life and the lives of others.  Many of my friends who belong to the same age bracket are going through major life changes - babies, weddings, moving to different cities or parts of the country, and losing or getting a new job.

Even more so, I've had friends who've gone through major shifts in their dating relationships.  Perhaps since we are all maturing, settling, and/or "growing up," things NEED to shift to make way for whatever new collective experiences there will be.



In the major break-ups that I've been privy to, including my own, it seems that a lot of what happens is just life.  General maturing and growing up plays into these break-ups, since for the most part the people involved in the relationship have both moved to a different point in their lives.  It seemed to me that the women in the relationship have moved up a step and the men have just moved in a different direction, neither in a better or worse place.

In several separate friends' relationships, the women felt that they were moving up a step in their lives and thought that their success would lead to a stronger relationship; however, they were surprised to learn that their significant others did not feel the same.  These recent demises has contributed to my pondering about White Knight Syndrome. 

Now, clearly, I don't want to overgeneralize here.  But in these specific situations, I do feel that there was a possibility that the men felt that they were no longer needed/useful/the bread-winners.

Again, I don't want to overgeneralize.  I think that many men are comfortable sharing bread-winning responsibilities, and I might even speculate that these are the men who wouldn't necessarily frequent the Spearmint Rhino.

For the relationships I mentioned above, it just so happens that the end was after the women have been out on their own for a while, maybe in a different city, or they've gained more financial stability than the men.

Luckily, my group of friends in the same age bracket have been questioning the surplus of "Princess" paraphernalia that has become so popular recently.  In fact, we are perhaps extremely aware of the Princess Syndrome and its pitfalls.

So, great!  We're (the women, I mean) all now much more independent, even in the worst of situations we are able to make our own ends meet and satisfy our own needs.

Did our successes leave those men feeling useless?  Clearly, not enough conversation is happening about those "white knight feelings."

From the perspective of a woman and a friend, it seems horribly backwards and disempowering for a man to care for someone, spout out how much they love them and support them no matter what, and then book it out of the relationship as soon as he feels like he's done with her or can't do anything more.  Yet, it's horribly backwards and disempowering for a man to feel like he is useless when a woman can take care of herself.

Sure, I believe that stable relationships (based on reality and not fairytales) are difficult in your 20's since your life is still in so much fluctuation, especially now that so much more of the world is accessible to us.  So perhaps breakup's are inevitable, and we can only hope to have left the other person more wise.  Nonetheless, the pressure to settle down and have a family is still a strong one considering that there are many happily and unhappily married folks in their 20's.

Then, of course, there's the extremely high divorce rate and all the instances of cheating that we see in our politicians, celebrities, sports figures, etc.  Note that the statistics show that the highest divorce rates happen in the 20's age bracket.  I'd be curious to see the divorce rate on the 50-60 age bracket, the next Return of Saturn.  But that's a whole different blog post that I don't feel like wasting, and here I've focused more on just a general end of a relationship.

Gosh, I don't really know what I'm trying to conclude here.  Maybe that the White Knight Syndrome is something we all need to be conscious of just as much as the Princess Syndrome?  Maybe just observing that no matter what she does, the woman seems to ultimately be at fault for the end of a relationship?  Maybe that regardless of how much we prepare for heartache, it always hurts?

I don't know.  I do know that this all just adds another level of complexity to being single or dating in your 20's.  There's no possible way that we could ever predict when something is going to change, but we will always know that it will change.

And now, ladies and gentlemen...the truth...
Truth be told, the recent demises or ends of relationships have shaken my core.  From all the recent news about Tiger Woods and his infidelity to dear friends' heartbreaks.  It's made me feel that nothing is sacred.  It's as though it doesn't matter how attractive a person is, how rich and famous, how kind and gentle, nor perhaps how much love there is in the relationship.

I know that can't possibly be true, even if it feels that way.  Maybe I'm just hoping that people will be more conscious of the idea of white knights along with the whole princess phenom. 

If she's so eager and caught up in the idea of happily every after, it comes with a pretty hefty price (literally and figuratively).  If he's wanting to show you how much of a "man" he is by paying for everything and possibly controlling the situation, you might want to be wary of this white knight in disguise.

It's rough terrain out there...all we can do is learn about all the possible traps and holes and steep inclines.  But experiencing it is the only true way to learn, unfortunately.

With that, I leave you with a hilarious screen shot of an online costume store:

Yikes...What will the regular child rental look like?