Probably the fleeting nature of their acquaintance made his internal idealized image of the feminine (anima) that much more prevalent. As a result, Cinderella becomes more alluring. After all, he already knew the other eligible young women in his kingdom (it wasn’t a very big community). He knew more about them than lie probably wanted to know. Cinderella was someone new, who was an unknown. What better object on which to project one’s fantasies and wishes!
And what about Cinderella? What does she really know about her Prince Charming other what she reads in the local newspaper (or local gossip) and the little bit she found after one dance? We know that Cinderella is inclined to daydream quite a bit, hence we might anticipate that her Prince Charming is composed primarily of her own fantasies and dreams—her own masculine (animus) projections. When does she find out who the real Prince Charming is? After the wedding? After their first child is born? After he begins spending more time with his friends and with affairs of state than with her? Perhaps, Cinderella should read some of the accounts of Princess Diana prior to her death (which are themselves mostly fantastic projections rather realities).before signing on with the prince.
This is one of the most remarkable features of this initial period of infatuation. Our new lover occupies a central position in all aspects of our life. We can’t get this person out of our mind or heart. We try to wash him or her out of our hair, but they continue to haunt our every moment. As Steven Sondheim has observed, we feel like we’re losing our mind: standing there in the middle of the floor, not knowing what to do with our life! In another song, Neil Diamond took this sentiment to an even greater extreme. He sings of a lover whose life story started the day his beloved came into his life and ends the day she leaves. For Diamond’s lover, there is no life either before or after meeting the person he now loves. Not only does this person fill a central space in the life of Diamond’s lover, there simply is nothing in life other that the object of his infatuation.
