Where did you get your ‘one’?

Every fairytale centers around the concept of ‘the one’. Boy meets girl. They date for a period. They realize that they want to spend the rest of their lives together. They live happily ever after. The happily ever after bit is on the sickly side but is done away with thanks to car repayments, kids, saggy boobs, boeps and bouts of impotence. It doesn’t exist, or at least not in the same one-liner way it appears in Cinderella.

How do all these fairytale lead characters always know when they’ve met ‘the one’? I know I know it’s a story and therefore not true but the whole idea of ‘the one’ is something that plagues most people. Well it’s something that worries me. I want to know if it is something a person suddenly realizes? Does a mythical and metaphorical bolt of lightening hit you? Or is it more gradual, a realization that creeps up on you like old age?

Also what happens if you’ve met ‘the one’ but you’re a girl? What happens if you’re me? Even though I’m not old fashioned I kind of like the idea of being proposed to, I’m not so keen on doing the proposing.

Life would be made so much easier if someone would just open up a shop stocking lots of ‘the one’s’. They could have little labels sewn behind their ears and a lifetime warranty. Also it would be really great if they were tax deductible.