This love will forever be unrequited, and that's probably a good thing as:

a) She's eight years old and doesn't age
b) She has yellow skin and spikes for hair
c) She doesn't actually exist.

It's a pity that she isn't a real person, older, and less cartooney.

Lisa Marie¹ Simpson is the second child and first daughter of Homer and Marge Simpson in "The Simpsons". She's eight years old and in the second grade at Springfield Elementary School, where she is taught by Miss Hoover.

Lisa plays the saxophone with a jazz-bent, and is into a variety of social and moral causes.

In order to in any way understand Lisa Simpson, you have to see her as a girl of eighteen -- and a bright one at that -- trapped in the body of a girl of eight. This is what generates the apparent contradictions in her character:

Lisa is obsessed with pin-up Corey, loves The Happy Little Elves, desperately wants a pony and laughs along at Krusty and Itchy and Scratchy like other kids her age.

At the same time she decides against massive peer and parental pressure to become a vegetarian (sending shockwaves across the USA), turns against the Malibu Stacey doll because of the gender stereotypes it reinforced, and fights corruption on local and federal levels. She leads a protest at the Nuclear Power plant playing the guitar and singing Dylan-style, and resigns as a Little Miss Springfield because of tobacco advertising.

Lisa is obviously intelligent. Sometimes she can come across as quite geeky and grades-obsessed, but more often she is shown channeling her energies into some project or other. She's been through bullying at school, self-image problems, and the death of her friend Bleeding Gums Murphy. Nevertheless, she comes across as one of the most "together" characters on the programme.

Lisa gets the best lines. Sometimes they're idealistic and hopeful, often they're dark and cynical. An example:

"Mom, romance is dead. It was acquired in a hostile takeover by Hallmark and Disney, homogenised, and sold off piece by piece."

As I said above, it's the contradictions that give Lisa her charm. Idealist and realist, inspired genius and naive utopian, serious woman and giggling girl; Lisa combines these qualities to create a compelling, coherent character.

When I say I'm in love with Lisa Simpson, I mean that there should be more non-imaginary non-yellow grown-up women that embody those qualities in the world. So don't panic.

Additional Lisa Simpson factlets:

• Lisa Simpson is voiced by Yeardley Smith
• Lisa normally wears a red dress, a white pearl-esque necklace and red shoes
• She was born in 1984, during the Olympics. This presumably means that, as she's still eight, it's always 1992 in Springfield.

1: Thanks to sam512 for telling me her middle name