I've been watching rom-coms my entire life. We all have. We know the couple will end up together but we relish the drama anyway, and while it seems like harmless fun, they've given us a terrible blueprint for how to date. I admit that I'm indoctrinated, but at least I've come to recognize it.

I'm not talking about the no-brainers. Everybody knows that you don't wake up one day and realize you love your best dude friend. I'm talking about the stuff that you may not even think you learned from "Eternal Sunshine," but that you're secretly sabotaging your relationships because of Kate Winslet.

Here are four things I've discovered that Hollywood is miserably wrong about.

Rule #1: All a girl really needs is a sweet, goofy guy.

We've all been in terrible relationships. They may be abusive, or they may just be quietly unhappy. If you subscribe to the idea set forth by dozens of romantic movies, some slightly daffy guy is eventually going to come along, fall in love with all of your imperfections and make you realize how special you are. Movies reinforce the belief that women should wait around for some deus ex machina in the form of a charming, worshipful dude to validate our existences and prove that somebody will ultimately accept us and all of our foibles. It's like a kind of castrated knight-in-shining-armor deal. Every woman wants to think that some nice guy will rescue her from the sea of a-holes. But, ladies, if your dating life sucks, work to make it better yourself. Don't wait for somebody to come along and complete you.

Rule #2: Getting over your baggage is noble -- nay, romantic.

How many movies have you seen where a suitor works extra hard to earn the love of a damaged mate? Because when you have emotional baggage in a movie, you are an enigma wrapped in a sexy mystery. In reality, having trust issues -- or dating somebody with them -- is lonely and miserable. Letting emotional ghosts haunt your current relationships isn't sexy -- it's exhausting. Trying to fix somebody is as bad as waiting to be fixed yourself. So if you've got baggage, instead of casting yourself as Clementine Kruczynski, cast yourself in a movie where you deal with your issues before you try to build something with somebody. OK, it'd be a boring movie, but a much happier life.


Rule #3: Love means complete and total honesty.

Where did we get the idea that spilling your secrets is the key to intimacy? Real intimacy goes beyond just the facts, it's about revealing parts of yourself that could make you seem less ... perfect. Less together. It's about letting someone else see you the way you actually see yourself. While telling someone that you slept around out of insecurity is a fair thing to disclose, your boyfriend doesn't need your actual number. It's more than just a collection of facts -- and it's a big part of a healthy relationship -- but it's hard, because it shows vulnerability. It should be done slowly, and with tact.

Rule #4: We've fallen in love, admitted it and kissed. OK! The end.

In rom-coms, where do the movies always end? Right after the couple gets together. That is the happy ending: two people actually making a commitment. That's where we leave our couple, happily making popcorn in their kitchen or kissing on a bridge someplace in a helicopter shot. They are together and thus there is no reason to continue watching them. Are we in such a rush to get to that comfy, "OK, this is official" part of a relationship that we're forgetting to enjoy it?

Recently I was helping a friend decode text messages from a new boyfriend, and she yelled, "I just want to fast forward two months when we're past all this!" And while I understood exactly what she meant, it made me sad that she wanted to skip all the giddy, fun, unsure parts of courtship. Where are the rom-coms about couples who have been living together for two years, share a cat, and still make each other laugh and have great sex? Until we have that blueprint, we should work harder to keep long term relationships just as fun and full of new discoveries as the first hour of any Katherine Heigl movie.

Every girl needs some dramatic dating experiences, and by following these rom-com dating rules, you certainly will have them. It's my challenge to you that instead of just obeying the laws set forth by Hollywood, start writing your own romantic comedy. Make it full of weird decisions and sweet awkwardness, but make it happy and realistic. Because it has no ending.

Emily Gordon is a Lemondrop contributor, blogger and journalist who lives in New York.