There you are, sitting alone, and it happens. Slowly, she appears: hands, then arms, then face, emerging from your wall/mirror/television/organic chem notebook... and she's there. In your room. Your dream girl. Existing just to make you happy. Providence has smiled upon you, and this miracle will surely solve all your romantic woes and cure you of loneliness. A few bumps in the road to clear first, perhaps, but with a blissful lifetime of love and companionship to follow.

Guess again, chummer.

The phenomenon of Dream Girls -- young women suddenly and impossibly appearing, existing allegedly for the happiness of their subject -- is a plague recently visited upon mankind. Fortunately, half the race seems immune; women don't get Dream Girls (or the gender equivalent). Young women do have their own special affliction: getting whisked away to Fantasy Worlds. But this doesn't even qualify as an affliction; it's a pretty good deal. Surrounded by faithful, strapping men in a world where no one knows you and word of your activities is never going to follow you back home? Heavens, what a predicament. Sadly, this curse is never visited on men (here the exception proves the rule: in the one well-documented case of a boy getting spirited away to a magnificent world, it was obviously a mistake, as they made him spend the time in drag). No, boys get stuck with Dream Girls. And when yours appears, don't get giddy with excitement just yet. There're a few things you need to remember.

1. Your love-life is in the toilet.
Let's face it, a Dream Girl appearing for you is not a cosmic vote of confidence in how you are handling your affairs. You have been unhorsed in the lists of love -- if you ever managed to get in the saddle in the first place. And having a strange new girl living with you and making cow eyes all the time is not going to make it very easy to meet/attract/patch things up with the real live girl who might actually make you happy. So when Dream Girl leaves, you'll be miserable again. Which leads to...

2. She comes with an expiration date.
The metaphysical explanation might be anything: she's needed elsewhere, the tape only runs so long, or her elbows are faulty and the manufacturer has issued a safety recall. It doesn't matter. It's logically obvious that Dream Girls can't last: people would start to notice that the population was a lot more than 50% female (wait! you think: the population could remain constant, because all the real girls are being magically whisked away! Nice try. But they come back, and were hardly gone a day or two our time). You'll have hopes she'll stay, but the stories about her somehow "finding a way" are the Japanese equivalent of Hollywood slapping a happy ending on the story of The Little Mermaid.

3. You don't own your own home.
You've seen all the propaganda. Boy and girl co-habitate in their own house, divvying up the domestic chores, spending their spare time alone together, etc., etc. Don't believe it. Dream Girls do not appear for guys who have a mortgage. You live with someone. If you're in high school (or, God help you, junior high), it's probably your parents. Your siblings may be cool with a strange girl moving in with you; Mom and Dad won't be. If you're in college, either you live in the dorms, in a thimble called a "single", or you have room/apartmentmates. Not a lot of privacy in any case, and the world is full of landlords and RHD's who will notice you living with a girl who inevitably looks about 15. Which leads to...

4. She's underage.
"Better to have loved and lost..." and all that? Think at least you'll be happy while she's here? Not so fast. You'll get reported whether anything is going on or not, and your Dream Girl doesn't come with a fake ID good enough to fool the police. You just know they're going to figure her for some runaway, and Dream Girls have an unfortunate habit of being found scantily-clad. Thinking you can get off the hook by somehow proving her real origins? Then you'll have really done it: legally, she's an infant. Can you say "Contributing to the Delinquency of a Minor?" I thought you could. While you're at it, try "Megan's Law" and "Elmira Correctional Facility". And you thought the romantic problems you had before were bad.

5. She's got family.
Dream Girls don't come from nowhere. Someone created her, and somewhere she's got siblings. Siblings who can do things like run computers that run the world and travel between dimensions. Who are, in other words (and at least compared to you), slightly god-like. If she's got a brother or fiancé, it's all over. It doesn't matter what you did, he'll know what you were thinking, and you're toast. If she's got sisters, you've got a chance -- a sister won't incinerate you for daring to be Dream Girl's boyfriend. But now you'd better not meet anyone real, cause if you break Dream Girl's heart, you will quickly end up as a bucket of extra-crispy.

Thought you'd be the happiest guy in the world when she showed up, eh? Now you know better. When you see her starting to emerge, don't give in to that fatal temptation to see what she looks like. Get out of the room. Fast. Before she can identify you. And then run like hell.