And they lived happily ever single
SINGLES by Karenina Yaptinchay
Manila Standard, P. 20B, 30 September 2000

Have you ever heard of a story where the lead character survives a tragedy or a broken heart, gets up from the shambles, and manages to be alone and happy? No wonder society in general thinks that if we fail in love, we can never be happy.

About two weeks ago, some cable channel showed "Pretty Woman," which I am sure most of you have already watched. But for the benefit of those who didn’t, the movie is about a hooker who hooks a modern day prince charming. In one of the dialogues, the hooker's hooker friend even implied that she was a "Cindy-f--king-rella." Julia Roberts, who plays the title role, even talked about her illusion of having a prince take her away on his white horse.

To be more attuned to the times, the pretty woman was not enslaved by her wicked stepmother and stepsisters. Instead, society enslaved her. She didn’t have money either so she resorted to prostitution. She didn’t go to a palace but went to live in a lavish hotel in Beverly Hills. She didn’t go to a ball but went to an opera instead. Prince charming, however, was just as charming. He was rich not because of a monarchy but because of the mega-bucks business he worked hard for and, partly perhaps, inherited from his late father. He didn’t come in a white horse. He brought a white limousine instead. It's a movie really, not a bedtime book, but it's a fairy tale nonetheless.

We all grew up with fairy tales. Sleeping Beauty tells a tale of a princess who was cursed at her Christening to die at the age of sixteen. Of course, she just slept for one hundred years. It kept me wondering how Prince Philip, who woke her up with his magical kiss of true love, managed to stay so young and handsome still. Snow White, also a princess, left her own palace because her wicked queen stepmother wanted her dead. Just like Sleeping Beauty, her prince woke her up with the magical kiss.

Because of the implications on gender roles, fairy tales receive a lot of criticism from certain "progressive" groups. In an attempt to adapt these tales to modern times, James Finn Gardiner even wrote the "Politically Correct Bedtime Stories." Unfortunately, I only got the chance to read one story, the one about "Little Red Riding Hood" where she took offense when the woodcutter came to her rescue. Hood called him a sexist and felt insulted that he did not think that she and the wolf can resolve the problem on their own. It was really good for a laugh but I guess a little bit too much to be told to a little kid before bedtime. You wouldn't want to tell the children that Hood's grandma chopped the woodcutter's head off with an ax, unless you want to encourage serial killing.

I love listening, reading, and watching fairy tales. Aside from being entertaining, they always include values that can be learned. Beauty is in the inside. Good will always win over the bad. Love conquers all. These values can last us a lifetime. I also love those happy endings. When I was little, it took me a while to get over the trauma of watching another version of the "Little Mermaid" where the little mermaid turned into the foam of the sea because she refused to kill the prince, the only way she could save herself.

I do not really pay much attention on how men or women are portrayed in fairy tales. What I more concerned about are the implications of finding happiness in marriage. Fairy tales are part of our childhood and one way or another, our parents have told us the story of how princesses and princes meet, fall in love, and get married, and so on and so forth.

Fairy love stories begin with "once upon a time" and end with "and they lived happily ever after." Although not all fairy tales are love stories, the most popular ones are and they all promise a prince charming and eternal love. After all, who does not want a happy ending? But what is a happy ending? Finding a prince and getting married?

Authors Xavier Amador and Judith Kiersky theorized that people's outlook on marriages and singlehood comes from a "script" people learn while growing up. True, these outlook and expectations are developed over a lifetime, most of them are formed in childhood. And since fairy love stories are probably our first exposure to romance, they do have an effect on how we, as grown-ups, view life, love, marriage, or the lack thereof.

"Just like a script for a play or a movie, you know what to expect at every turn, provided you've committed the parts to memory," they said. "You can't revise your script until you are clear about what it contains." Knowing why we think the way we do helps us understand reality and get over the hang-ups, which we probably keep in our subconscious for most of our lives.

The fairy tale is part of our childhood. There is nothing wrong with being exposed to the timeless tales, which entertained, inspired, or simply send off to sleep generation after generation for centuries. All these stories are great literature, which allows us to exercise our imagination and continue dreaming.

There is, however, a lack of material and hype on what happens when the princess and the prince do not find themselves married or together in the end. I can only think of the Little Mermaid but that was tragic because she died for love.

Have you ever heard of a story where the lead character survives a tragedy or a broken heart, gets up from the shambles, and manages to be alone and happy? No wonder majority of people in our society think that just because we fail in love, the kind between a man and a woman, we can never be happy.

Until reality shook me really hard one fateful day last year, I have always thought I would "live happily ever after" when I get married. I know now that even if people do not marry, they can live a happy life, although not the same kind of happiness brought by marriage and raising a family. Marriage is not better, just different.

When I was younger, I thought that the only way I can be happy and single was to become a nun. The amazing thing about all these childhood influences is that no one really shoved it down my throat. The nuns who brought me up did not tell me that the only way to go when you grow up was to either get married or become one of them. My parents did not tell me that I should find myself a nice boy I could marry so I could live happily ever after. Most of the beliefs I have now were formed by my own subconscious - how I perceived things and how I made sense of what I saw or read or experienced all throughout my life.

With all the broken marriages that surround us nowadays, I am convinced everyday that not all married couples live happily ever after. Sure, there are some couples that are truly blessed that they survive, managing to make things work despite the many challenges but I believe some people are just meant to be happy as singles. They, those who are still single, just have to realize that it is possible to be happy as a single person, in one way or another.

A couple of years ago, I attempted to write a fairy tale about a young princess who had everything she ever wanted in life, except for a magic ball owned by some commoner who would risk death just to keep the ball. The princess became so obsessed with the magic ball. Her happiness depended on it. A brat, she threw away all her toys just so she could get the only thing she could not have. She became very miserable and could no longer go on with and enjoy her rich and royal life. I didn’t finish the story because on one hand, I didn’t want her to die miserably as a "failure." But on the other hand, I also wanted her to survive the reality. Frustrated, I stopped writing and threw all my drafts away.

Maybe I could continue on to write that a prince (could be anybody, really) came along and promised the princess he would get the ball for her so that she could end her misery. His reward would be marriage to the future queen. The prince later discovered that the magic ball was not so magical after all. It was only magical for the commoner who did not have any toy to begin with. Its magic lies on the happiness it brought the commoner, something the princess could never quite fathom.

When the princess realized that the magic only worked for certain people, she decided to have the royal "ballmaker" replicate the darn ball so she can give them away to those who can experience the same kind of magic. She also realized that she could be more than happy with what she already had. The story will not say whether the prince and the princess got married or not because things did not turn out the way they all planned. They became best of friends, giving away the ball together to as many commoners as they could, and then they lived happily ever single, until such time when they probably realize that getting married is more than just getting a magical ball of sorts.

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