Chivalry is dead…except for on paper bound between a cover depicting a shirtless male in a provocative pose.

It is no secret that I am a single woman.  I’ve been that way for longer than I care to admit.  I have never noticed a lack of any romance or companionship in my life and there is a big reason for that:  Book Boyfriends!  For those of you unfamiliar with the phrase, a book boyfriend is a fictional character that one reads about and then proceeds to fantasize about, stalk on the website of their author, and compare every man that crosses one’s path to.

I have had many of them; I’m not very faithful.  It started with Lestat, way back when I picked up my first vampire novel.  Later there was Sebastian Wroth from No Rest for the Wicked by Kresley Cole.  Lately, I’ve had a thing for my own characters.

When I attempted to make the plunge back into the real life dating world, I realized a few things.  Here’s a list of the top ten things that irk me:

1.  Most real men do not have six packs. (This is very disappointing)

2.  Men no longer open doors unless you stand there and look at them pointedly.

3.  If you want to hear a sexy voice at the other end of the phone line, forget about it and hope for a cute text message with a wink smiley.

4.  Alpha males are few and far between.  I want, “I’m picking you up for dinner at [insert nice restaurant name here].  Be ready at seven and wear something nice, with no panties.”  I get, “Wherever you want to go is fine with me.”  Again, via text message.

5.  They don’t always make sure you come first.

6.  When you meet someone for the first time, there is no immediate spark to let you know that they are “the one” unless there is a short in the computer or cell phone.

7.  You will not meet the love of your life when he saves you from a serial killer or rogue werewolf.

8.  Only 3.9 percent of men are over 6’2″.

9.  While some men may fight for your honor, they’ll probably yell at you later while you are dressing the numerous wounds they received while getting pummeled on by that neanderthal.

10.  A real life relationship does not go from love at first sight to happily ever after in the 250 pages it takes to wrap up that international spy mission.

I wrote all this to say simply that women, particularly those that read a lot of romance novels, don’t need to lower their standards, but do need to make them more realistic.  And men need to step up their game to somewhere between Alex from Safe Haven by Nicholas Sparks and the infamous Christian Grey.