If you have had any access to the media in recent years, you have by now heard of the Twilight series of books (soon to be movies), which are tales of romance, adventure, werewolves, vampires, extreme hyperbole, raging hormones, and teenage ideals. It is the hottest young adult reading craze since Harry Potter and the Socerer’s Stone hit the shelves in the United States over a decade ago. At a time when reading for fun has hit an all time low with the younger generations, these series have rekindled the interest in the archaic notion of watching the story play out in your mind rather than on a screen (admittedly both series are in the process of making it to the big screen, but REAL fans have read the books prior to the movie releases). What, then, you are wondering, is my problem with Stephenie Meyer and her whirlwind entrance into the collective teenage psyche of this generation?

The heroine of this series is aimed at young girls with the deadly accuracy of a poisoned arrow. She is an outsider, the new kid in town, she often feels out of place and alone and she tends to trip over her own two feet a lot. I doubt anyone who remembers being 14, male or female, can dispute that Bella Swan as a character sums up adolescence perfectly. Into all of this rides the main male character, Edward Cullen, untouchable by any of the other girls, who is inexplicably drawn to Bella despite his best efforts to stay away. He is handsome, charming, well mannered, and above all, incredibly attentive and intuitive. Bella immediately falls in love with him in book one and spends the next four books of the series attempting to get turned into a vampire so they can spend the rest of the unnatural lives together.

Twilight lesson #1: Someday the perfect man will find you, the relationship will be effortless, and all you will ever need to be fulfilled will be to spend every waking moment with him.

I am well aware that grown women are as equally attracted to these books as are younger women, but I tend to believe (perhaps mistakenly, I am not perfect unlike Edward Cullen) older women have had a few more life experiences that make it easier for them to draw the line between the plausible and implausible within the books. They have had their shares of disappointment in men, probably disappointed their share of men, and moved on and created a real and working life. In a way, the fantasy of the perfect and easy relationship is quite possibly the major draw of the books to this demographic. Or they may just enjoy a good, entertaining story, it really could go either way.

But for young girls who can envision themselves in Bella’s shoes, Twilight has set unrealistic expectations for an entire generation of women. They may go into a relationship expecting an Edward and Bella dynamic, only to discover that real 17 year old boys are…well…boys. They won’t be attentive and constantly trying to figure out what’s going on in your head, they won’t always say the right thing at the exact right moment (and in fact are likely to say the exact wrong thing at that moment instead), they are on occasion well mannered but that can’t be expected on a regular basis either. And obviously it depends on the girls and the guys involved in these relationships, but largely in real life it takes many attempts at relationships to get good at having productive interactions, and even then it will be a struggle to keep things in working order.

There is no knight in shining armor. There is no perfect man. There is no perfect human, let’s be honest. You will need more than a guy, or a marriage or a child to fulfill yourself, not that those all aren’t important parts of reaching fulfillment, but they can’t be the be all and end all of your every waking moment in a healthy lifestyle.

Twilight lesson #2: Forget about all personal goals and desires, these will be irrelevant once you meet the perfect guy.

After falling for Edward, Bella immediately begins scheming how to get him or one of his family members to turn her into a vampire so they can be together forever. She forgets about her family, her plans to go to college, and most of her other friends outside of the vampire clan she befriends (there’s this thing with the werewolves, but let’s not get into that now). What high school romance hasn’t involved someone thinking they’ll be together forever? And here Bella has a way to pull it off with the perfect man! What a lucky girl. She’ll only have to give up everything she ever wanted, but its OK! She’s got Edward Cullen, and who needs anything else? Seriously, I thought women had gotten past the 1950’s notion of finding a husband and dropping all other life goals in favor of being a wife and mother.

But thank you, Stephenie Meyer, for setting the next generation of American women back 50 years.