They're tryin' to tell me how to feel

White People Embracing by Nicholas Sparks

A guy out there was meant to be the love of your life, your best friend, your soulmate. The one you can tell your dreams to. He’ll brush the hair out of your eyes. Send you flowers when you least expect it. He’ll stare at you during the movies, even though he paid eight dollars to see it. He’ll call to say “Goodnight” or just because he is missing you. He’ll look in your eyes and tell you you’re the most beautiful girl in the world. And for the first time in your life, you’ll believe it.

-Nicholas Sparks

Maybe I'm just looking for something to argue with seeing this is a Nicholas Sparks quote and I think his books are highly overrated (to say the least), but come on, man.

I hate that he assumes that all girls want the same thing, how he lumps us all together like that. Are we supposed to be reassured by these things he's saying? Because they're making me want to poke an eye out.

First of all, "meant to be." What does that even mean? Meant to be, by what standard? I still have trouble with the concept of one-person-for-everyone because of how many people there are in the world. Am I supposed to believe that location is factored into this destiny stuff? Like, my so-called soul mate can't possibly live on the other side of the world, because that means I will never meet him. If that's the case, doesn't that make my pool of possible "soul mates" pretty limited? And what makes you think everyone believes in soul mates anyway?

"The one you can tell your dreams to." First of all, you just ended a sentence with a preposition, therefore I cannot take you seriously as a writer. But that's okay because I never really did in the first place. But back to the point: I sincerely hope there is more than one person with whom I can discuss my dreams. And you failed to mention whether or not he tells his dreams to me. I'm not a big talker, so I'd prefer someone who can keep up their end of a conversation.

"He'll brush the hair out of your eyes." Okay, but if there's hair in my eyes that probably means it's tangled in my freakish eyelashes, in which case it would be awkward for anyone but me to brush it away. So thanks but no thanks.

"Send you flowers when you least expect it." NOT ALL GIRLS LIKE FLOWERS. If he's going to send me something, make it books. Will also accept chocolate.

"He'll stare at you during movies..." One: creepy. Two: I hate it when people stare at my profile because I am self-conscious about my nose. Three: I go to the movies to watch movies, and I don't really want to feel like I'm dragging someone else along when they find it so boring that they'd rather stare at my face.

"He'll call you to say 'goodnight' or just because he is missing you." I don't like talking on the phone.

"He'll look in your eyes and tell you you're the most beautiful girl in the world." Well, I'll know that he hasn't seen all the girls in the world, so his argument will be invalid. And don't presume to tell me that I'll believe it, because I will not.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that I don't like it when [middle-aged, cheeseball] men [who can't tell a story that doesn't involve someone dying] attempt to tell girls what they want and how they will inevitably feel about certain things.