Prince Charming Syndrome: Are you suffering from it?

Prince Charming is one of the archetypal figures rooted in our subconscious.. It gives shape to that recurring idea that out there, somewhere, is the perfect person for us. It is a silent and almost obsessive longing that often makes us look for other men and women on dating apps, even if we have a stable partner.

On the other hand, let’s not think that this desire for relational perfection exclusively defines women. In reality, there are many men who want to be “Prince Charming,” that is, someone who assumes the model of heroic and supposedly ideal masculinity.

The truth is that these types of behaviors and psychological constructs that often determine us manifest interesting phenomena. There are those who point out that These portraits of the mechanics of desire, attraction, and behavior are mere sociocultural products.. However, anthropologist Helen Fisher does not talk about evolutionary adaptation…

How do we explain this type of syndromes that take their name from Walt Disney’s most famous characters? We analyze it.

We can all have a list of what we are looking for in a partner. But if we are inflexible and unrealistic, we will suffer.

Characteristics of Prince Charming Syndrome

Idealizing the loved one is something that we have all done with one of our partners; especially when we were younger. However, The real problem comes when we idealize love in general. This happens when, despite having a stable and satisfying relationship, a feeling, an emptiness, a longing persists. The one where you think that there may be someone much better.

In our daily lives, the mind escapes and fantasizes about other possibilities. We assume that there must be a perfect and exciting person, one capable of aligning in mind, body, ideals and thoughts with us.. Our soulmate is somewhere out there and that idea leads us to wander through Tinder and any other dating application looking for that ideal figure.

Prince Charming Syndrome defines those who have such a romantic version of what love should be like that they often miss the opportunity to have a satisfying relationship. What’s more, they may even break off an existing commitment just because they continue to insist that love is not that, and that there must be “something deeper.”

Almost without realizing it, they become wanderers of affection, seekers of a mythological grail that only brings misfortune and disappointment. However, there are deeper and more striking aspects of this syndrome that are worth discovering.

The eternal desire to achieve a perfect connection with someone

Prince Charming syndrome does not define any diagnostic category; That is, there is nothing pathological, it only describes a psychological reality. In fact, we have been using figures from classic stories for several decades to describe behaviors that are repeated in the population.

An example of this is Cinderella syndrome, coined by Dr. Peter K. Lewin in 1976. Later, a study at the University of Delhi (India) endorsed this term to exemplify the dependence of some women on their emotional relationships.

Thus, and with regard to the archetype of Prince Charming, it comes to symbolize our need to idealize love. Even more, This label embodies the psychological desire to have a perfect connection with another person.

Thus, This syndrome also seeks to make visible the origin of many dissatisfactions in relationships.. They are those situations in which one is never completely happy because he longs to achieve authentic intimacy with someone, a passionate love in which the understanding and satisfaction of all needs is absolute, almost magical.

Prince Charming syndrome in some men

This syndrome forms a very multifaceted psychological reality, that is, it presents more than one characteristic. It is true that behind all of them is that often dangerous and dysfunctional seed that is romantic love. The one that gives rise to completely wrong ideas about how affection and relationships work in general.

In the case of men, Prince Charming syndrome sometimes manifests itself in a curious way. There are young and not so young boys who embody the classic savior hero archetype, of those who care for, rescue, maintain and protect. Often, this form of masculinity is inherited by the education received and the role they have seen their own parents play.

This tendency sometimes clashes with the personality of a good part of women. Nowadays, not everyone is looking for that male figure to support them or rescue them. Thus, The ideal partner for a “Prince Charming” is the woman with Cinderella syndromethat is, girls with fear of independence and with the unconscious desire to be cared for and protected.

We all dream of an ideal love, but we must work for a real, happy and enriching love.

The need to rationalize our unconscious desires

There are many who have that Trojan horse called “Prince Charming Syndrome” integrated into their unconscious. Both men and women. They idealize love and belittle real people. They do it because they assume completely biased ideas about what relationships are like and that encourages them to chain emotional bonds, almost always doomed to failure.

Anthropologist Helen Fisher tells us that romantic love is a physiological impulse rather than an emotion.. It would be something purely chemical, something difficult to control. However, we cannot separate the sociocultural level from this behavior, and how our society has instilled in us for a long time the idea that there is someone ideal and perfect for us somewhere.

To conclude, we must be clear, the search for perfection only generates suffering. Let’s look for real loves, those in which the connection can also be satisfactory, Magical at times, complicated at times, but something worth working on.

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