Oh my god, thank you so much for writing this! I have 1,001 things to say on this topic, having grown up super sheltered on all things romantic-relationship-related and thus needing to do a lot of work shedding toxic beliefs in my early 20s.

I feel the adult, mature knee-jerk reaction to people saying romantic relationships on TV shouldn't be emulated is, "Oh, but of course they shouldn't be emulated! It's a work of fiction! Just a story!" Sure, some people can discern that fictional relationships are just that: fictional relationships, written and designed to be dramatic in order to draw in an audience. But for young people—who haven't had many relationships or seen much of the world—these relationships can seem very real. When you haven't dated before, ever, you quite honestly don't know what's real or not.

If only creators of content for children/teens understood this.

For the longest time, I bought into the belief that as long as you were nice, tried very hard, and did impressive things, you would "get the girl" so to speak. This is a trope in soooo many movies, and it usually works in the movies. So imagine my clobbered self-esteem and anger when it didn't work for me IRL.

I had to learn the hard way—and after making tons of mistakes—that real life is not the same as the movies. People like you or they don't. People don't owe people or own people. And you shouldn't badger people who just don't return your feelings.

Thanks so much for writing this! I may write a similar article too in the future with my own perspective and I'll be sure to tag yours as an inspiration :)