Sir Florian and the Patient Dragon

Perhaps it is better this way. The age of the knight is long dead, and the old medieval customs of romantic love and shining knights charging across the battlefield are long over, where ladies were pure and men were stout of heart. But the cold hard reality was that ladies were never pure, and many of those knights were bloodthirsty killers. Hard cold reality has crushed our nostalgia once again, and thoughts of better days past were just some fantasy that can never been realized.
Of course, it is all bull honky. Why I say this is because even with the cold poison of reality, fantasies do come true, even with the problems of making them so. Happiness is achievable, which involves some level of fantasy for people. Everyone has them, how things should go perfectly worked out in the ivory tower of our minds. When things don't go perfectly to plan, we become despondent, sinking into despair.
Why then do we still hold onto fantasy as possible reality? Are we all just hopeless romantics, wanting for a better time and place, seeking to escape the dreariness of our lives? My philosophy is that when it comes to finding and keeping someone, the fantasy does exist, and perhaps it truly is indeed worth it. How can I say this? Quite simply because I think most people have their head so far up their posterior most of the time (and this includes me) that they don't see the magic in their own lives. We all want to find, at some level, the perfect person that completes us. The problem with that is while people are searching for the Can't Hardly Wait moment, they miss the possibilities of Sweet Home Alabama. What do I mean by this?
In searching for our perfect person, we often miss opportunities that come along that very well could lead to our very own fairy tale. When I ask someone just what their fantasy is, I am often described a scene out of a romantic comedy, or sometimes a pornographic movie. The real problem is that people put themselves into what they are watching, and don't realize that they in all likelihood miscast themselves, mostly liking even on the wrong movie set. Even if you got the right fantasy, you could be Jon Cryer's Duckie instead of Andrew McCarthy. But on another set, you are cast as McDreamy, playing a nerd cutting the grass (yeah I used Patrick Dempsey's new nickname, only because if you watch his early movies he is nothing like that) who pays the hottest girl in school to date him, and guess what, hijinks ensue and they fall in love.
Why do people miscast themselves? It is often because they see what great things happen to those people in the movie, and want exactly what they have. The trick is to not put yourself into the movie. This is harder that it sounds, as our modern bards Hollywood with all of it faults still knows how to make an engrossing story.
How have I prepared myself for this? Instead of forcing myself into roles, I found the ones that fit me because they are similar to who I am. And if one watches enough movies, who can find a happy fantasy ending for almost every type of character. I am the bumbling Sir Florian, the bumbling mostly drunk knight who no one roots for, because he is not pretty and most think him a fool. But underneath that stained steel, a good heart beats and Sir Florian truly loves his princess, and protects her when she needs it the most. He does the knightly bit, helps the princess escape the evil castle, but tragically dies. Florian is a patient man, and his oafness was only an act. At the moment of her greatest need, Florian makes his move, and his hearts desire is realized. He undergoes terrible treatment and abuse from the evil king, but saves his princess from her personal hell. The truly terrible thing is that the princess sees all of this, and she cannot stop any of it. She doesn't love Florian at first, but after his sacrifice she holds him in a special place in her heart.
Depressing, isn't it? Well, perhaps I need to keep searching then, because for most people Florian's end is not happy. I would beg to disagree, but that is a discussion for another time. In that case, I will just be Preston, who has hair and wears t-shirts, some of the time. You can fight a dragon in that can't you?