Unrealistic Expectations of Love

Please note that due to a complete and utter lack of effort on your part, dear readers, I've resorted to recycling posts from my other blog that I have with my oh-so-brilliant friends. One posted a link to a story that claims that people who watch Romantic Comedies in turn have unrealistic expectations of relationships and lack communication skills...We then opened season on the hypothesis and this was my response:

Okay, so first off, I'll admit I've likely seen EVERY romantic comedy that has hit mainstream audiences in the past 10 years. I'm not proud of it, but in a way, I may be a pathetic expert on this topic.

Guess what? I'm so bad that I not only suffered through an entire novel (I grate my teeth to even call it that) comprised of 700 some pages of torturous writing - so committed was I to finish that book that I put myself through physical pain. Then do you know what I did? I watched the fucking movie in hopes that it would redeem the story and I would FOR ONCE be able to spew forth the words: The movie was better than the book!

To my, and Hilary Swank's, disgrace - I did not speak those seven words. I sighed and chalked up 2 more hours of my life wasted on "PS I Love You". I kid you not, even Denny from Grey's Anatomy couldn't save this horrific flick.

But that sad experience aside, I love me some chick flick. Do I especially love them during break ups? Hell yes! Do I own many on DVD and rewatch Hitch and French Kiss on a regular basis? You bet! But in my esteemed opinion, there really is one main Romantic Comedy by which to benchmark all others. This film is the be-all, end-all of Rom-Coms, if you will. And I set forth the example of "When Harry Met Sally".

This movie and all others within the genre follow the same general composition and the inevitable and CONSTANT ending - The Grand Gesture.

What is with that? Why can a movie NOT end with The Grand Gesture? In my life this is the only thing that I think may have influenced my relationships. I mean, wasn't every relationship supposed to have its ups and downs always resolved by one member of the relationship providing The Grand Gesture and solving EVERYTHING?

Riiiiight....

No, I totally thought so! I swear! I always thought that after every scuffle, every fight, one of the many exes would race through the barren woods on a snowy winter day, screaming my name, risking twig and limb, only to come back to me standing on the side of a cliff with my hair blowing in the wind, tears steaming down my face and he would arrive, bloodied and breathless and proclaim his undying love. He would tell me everything would be all right, that as long as we had love, we could endure anything together.

Fuck me. Right. But really, I even picked fights in hopes of the grand gesture. God my 20s were awesome!

That said, what about parental influence? Did this study even look at what sorts of homes these people were raised in? In a society where more homes than ever before are headed up by a single parent, isn't it only natural that children would lack an understanding about communication between life partners? That they would lean on movies about relationships in order to gain better understanding about them? I think more than anything else, any delusions or visions I had about the way things "were supposed to be" in my relationships came from my parents and they way they interacted with each other. And that one time my dad raced through the forest to my mom standing on the white cliffs of Dover. Or something.

And I think that people in their 20's - romantic comedy viewers or not - spend much of their time trying to learn how to navigate relationships. What to say, what not to say, how to say it, when to say it, and we ALL crash and burn at some points. And this isn't just with significant others, it happens at work, with friends, with family. Your 20s are a huge time when you learn how best to work your way through relationships of all sorts as you're no longer protected by the umbrella of school or friends or parents. Its you, 20-something, versus the world.

Which I suppose ropes back in someways to the lessons we've brought forth to you, friends thus far:

Date people your own age - or date cougars as they're pretty cool too.

Don't date the crazy, don't be the crazy - and if you're measuring your relationship against that of Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks in Sleepless in Seattle - We may have a problem.