Meet Lloyd, Aiden, Andrew, Troy, Jesse, Harry and, hell, throw in Dusty. The whole gang is here. These names represent the only crushes in my life and they are the reasons that I will never find happiness.

These names belong to fictional characters, the exception being Dusty, my cat. Yes, I know I am a girl who is in love with fictional characters and I own a cat that I count among my loves. There is a reason I was voted most likely to be a crazy cat lady in high school and this is it.

So introductions: Lloyd is Lloyd Dobler from Say Anything, the relentless boy next door. Aiden is Aiden Shaw from Sex and the City, the sensitive carpenter who is too good for us. Andrew is Andrew Largeman from Garden State, the funny guy that needs you. Troy is Troy Dyer from Reality Bites, the greasy haired musician who is also your best friend. Jesse is Jesse Wallace from Before Sunrise, a greasy-haired impulsive, philosophical dreamer that you meet on a train while abroad. Then there is Harry Potter --(who is way too young for me, but I can’t resist his bravery and neither can you).

I find that even guys can fall prey to the movie fantasy of a Sam from Garden State or an Amelie. Now, normal people will admire these fictional characters and then go out and meet real people, but I apparently have trouble finding someone who can live up to my fiction-induced standards. My friends share my frustrations and we have all come to the same conclusion — that the movies have ruined our chance for love.

Yes, I need to realize there are plenty of guys around here that should be good enough to the fill the void of companionship that plagues me. But I know I will never stop hoping for the day a Lloyd Dobler stands outside my window with his boom box playing the Iron and Wine cover of “Such Great Heights” as used in Garden State; while telling me that “I break his heart again and again but he still loves me,” as Troy Dyer does in Reality Bites.

In his book, Sex, Drugs and Cocoa Puffs, Spin writer Chuck Klosterman writes about the problem with fake love. He writes about convincing ourselves that fictionalized portrayals of romance can happen and how this is setting us up to measure our real relationships against the prospect of fake love. This is why, he theorizes, a woman will never satisfy him and he will never satisfy one in return.

So unrealistic have movies made my expectations that I went to Vienna just like in Before Sunrise. I sat on the train and I looked for a Jesse. But no one came and asked me to get off the train. And I find myself desperately disappointed it didn’t happen.

But then something right out of a movie did happen. Not to me, of course, but to one of my best friends and when I heard this story it restored all my faith in romance.

My friend had been casually dating a guy, but they hadn’t kissed yet. Imagine a scene with a boy and a girl at a park. Cue rain. Close up as they finally kiss. Wide shot of the boy swinging the girl around and hugging, both of them so glad that it finally happened. Cue Simon and Garfunkel and you have a scene right out of Garden State and my friend also has, in her opinion and mine, the ultimate first kiss. Movie love personified.

Now this story makes me crazy with jealousy as it does to every other girl who has heard it, but it also gives hope. A kiss in the rain is one of the defining characteristics of a good romantic storyline; see Say Anything, Sex and the City, Dawson’s Creek and Garden State and it happened to my friend.

This is what those of us who are lost in a world where the only relationships worth having begin on a foreign train or with a desperate chase to an airport must learn if we are ever to be happy. Guys and girls need to realize that romance isn’t confined to the silver screen, and in order to not be continually disappointed by the fact that our lives will never live up to the movies, we need to spend some time working to make our lives and our romantic moments disappoint whatever standard the movies have set.

This may sound unrealistic but ask my friend and she will tell you that her kiss in the rain bested any kiss she has seen on screen. As for me, I will, begrudgingly, turn off the movies and never give up hope that I will find someone to carry out my own movie moments with.

But to Aiden, Jesse, Troy, Andrew and Harry: I will never forget you.