Is falling in love like what it's like in romantic comedies?
I just watched Love and Other Drugs, and I'm wondering if this happens in real life, where you "can meet thousands of people who don't touch you -- and then you meet one." On a related note, what percentage of people are capable / actually find this?
14 Answers
Yes. The story of Jason McDonald and I could be a movie. I'll tell it, with standard copyright disclaimer that nunna you screenwriters are allowed to use it because I hope to. ;)
We met on the school bus in the spring of 10th grade, when I was new to the school. There were bad kids on the back of the bus, throwing stuff, saw him disarm them with his wit, and decided I had better make friends with him. I was the blue-haired girl, he was the chess club geek, and we were just buds. He'd come over to my house after school and we'd eat Spaghettios and watch "General Hospital."
Fast forward about 15 years. We had lost touch. I was a young single mom, piecing my life back together with two small children, living at my mom's house. One day, on the way home from work, we pulled up beside each other on the 376 East in rush hour traffic. We tried to throw phone numbers through open windows, but the traffic moved. Remembering his parents' phone number, I called when I got home and left my number. Jay called me that night and we talked effortlessly for four hours. There was a Penguins hockey playoff game the next day, and I loved hockey, so he invited me over to his new apartment to watch the game.
I went over the next night with some wings, a sixpack of beer, and a bag of Spaghettios in a blue shopping bag, for old times' sake. The guy who came to the door was taller, clearer-faced, and cuter than the one I went to high school with. I was so flustered I dropped the Spaghettios on my foot, which HURT, and I had to hobble up the stairs and put ice on my foot. When I went back home, my mom asked how he was doing and I burst into tears. "What's wrong?" she asked. "Did he turn into a jerk or something?"
"No," I said, "worse. He got really cute and I'm not allowed to think of him that way!"
For the next few months, we hung out just like we used to. As friends. We both found dating situations awkward, so decided that if either of us had something where a date was required, we'd just take each other. We had each other's back that way.
On my birthday, Jay invited me to see blues singer Koko Taylor with him, at a blues dive across the river. We went in, sat down, and he said to the bartender that I should have whatever I want, because it's (my) birthday. A large, masculine woman beside me wearing biker clothes suddenly turned around and exclaimed, "It's your birthday!?!" I answered in the affirmative and this lesbian stranger planted an unwanted kiss. I must have looked pretty freaked out because she pulled back, disgusted, and said, "Oh. You're here with HIM."
That was the moment, right there, that I realized, oh my God, I AM! I'm here, with HIM!
That was also the moment when he caught himself thinking, "Hey, get your hands off my....oh dear...."
Later that night we sat at opposite ends of the couch. Things were awkward.
[EDIT: I completely forgot to mention here, the absolute irony that the movie we happened to watch at this point was "Something About Mary," a romantic comedy about former high school friends who get together later in life...I couldn't have written that detail any better...]
I finally said, "Look, we're good enough friends that if I say something awkward things will just be weird for like a week, but then we'll laugh about it, right?"
"Yes," he said.
I explained that I thought I might like him, and not just as a friend. He answered that he thought he might like me, also, and perhaps we should try kissing once to see how that goes. I saw fireworks, and I knew, right there.
We're celebrating 10 years this year. He is a great stepfather to my two kids, and we now have a little guy of our own. Life is good. But I have to believe that I've seen romantic comedies with a lesser story than ours.
We met on the school bus in the spring of 10th grade, when I was new to the school. There were bad kids on the back of the bus, throwing stuff, saw him disarm them with his wit, and decided I had better make friends with him. I was the blue-haired girl, he was the chess club geek, and we were just buds. He'd come over to my house after school and we'd eat Spaghettios and watch "General Hospital."
Fast forward about 15 years. We had lost touch. I was a young single mom, piecing my life back together with two small children, living at my mom's house. One day, on the way home from work, we pulled up beside each other on the 376 East in rush hour traffic. We tried to throw phone numbers through open windows, but the traffic moved. Remembering his parents' phone number, I called when I got home and left my number. Jay called me that night and we talked effortlessly for four hours. There was a Penguins hockey playoff game the next day, and I loved hockey, so he invited me over to his new apartment to watch the game.
I went over the next night with some wings, a sixpack of beer, and a bag of Spaghettios in a blue shopping bag, for old times' sake. The guy who came to the door was taller, clearer-faced, and cuter than the one I went to high school with. I was so flustered I dropped the Spaghettios on my foot, which HURT, and I had to hobble up the stairs and put ice on my foot. When I went back home, my mom asked how he was doing and I burst into tears. "What's wrong?" she asked. "Did he turn into a jerk or something?"
"No," I said, "worse. He got really cute and I'm not allowed to think of him that way!"
For the next few months, we hung out just like we used to. As friends. We both found dating situations awkward, so decided that if either of us had something where a date was required, we'd just take each other. We had each other's back that way.
On my birthday, Jay invited me to see blues singer Koko Taylor with him, at a blues dive across the river. We went in, sat down, and he said to the bartender that I should have whatever I want, because it's (my) birthday. A large, masculine woman beside me wearing biker clothes suddenly turned around and exclaimed, "It's your birthday!?!" I answered in the affirmative and this lesbian stranger planted an unwanted kiss. I must have looked pretty freaked out because she pulled back, disgusted, and said, "Oh. You're here with HIM."
That was the moment, right there, that I realized, oh my God, I AM! I'm here, with HIM!
That was also the moment when he caught himself thinking, "Hey, get your hands off my....oh dear...."
Later that night we sat at opposite ends of the couch. Things were awkward.
[EDIT: I completely forgot to mention here, the absolute irony that the movie we happened to watch at this point was "Something About Mary," a romantic comedy about former high school friends who get together later in life...I couldn't have written that detail any better...]
I finally said, "Look, we're good enough friends that if I say something awkward things will just be weird for like a week, but then we'll laugh about it, right?"
"Yes," he said.
I explained that I thought I might like him, and not just as a friend. He answered that he thought he might like me, also, and perhaps we should try kissing once to see how that goes. I saw fireworks, and I knew, right there.
We're celebrating 10 years this year. He is a great stepfather to my two kids, and we now have a little guy of our own. Life is good. But I have to believe that I've seen romantic comedies with a lesser story than ours.
It can happen. I am a victim of this comedic nonsense.
I met my wife my freshman year of college. I was an obnoxious spaz, she was very quiet and reserved. I was making a video to send home to friends, and went around introducing everyone on camera. When I got to her, I said "this is Lennon's roommate, Heather." She responded with, "I'm not Lennon's roommate, Heather. I'm Heather." That wit struck me instantly, however I continued on my way, disregarding it, knowing she was funny, but not for me. She instantly hated me and wished I would take a valium.
That year I managed to trick someone else into being my first college girlfriend. It was an intense 5 months. I thought I was in love. When she dumped me, I crashed hard, and wrote really lame things in a journal for the next 5 months. I swore I would never date anyone I was close friends with first again, so I would never get hurt.
Over the next two years, I managed to get a reputation as drunken hookup guy. (Usually I was the drunk one, as I couldn't muster up as much courage sober.) Our junior year, Heather, now a very close friend, came up to me, drunk at a party, and said she really liked me. I said, "I know," then kept on partying. My douchiness did not seem to deter her.
The next party, a week later, she took another stab at it, with as much liquid courage as I usually medicated with. "I really like you." I responded with, "Heather, I know, but I refuse to ruin another friendship by dating someone I'm such good friends with." She stormed off, saying, "whatever."
Finally, the next week, I realized I could be wrong. I started considering. I went to lunch. Something in said lunch made me sick. That night, at the next party, before having an ounce to drink, I ran outside, and started puking off the front porch. Heather, more determined than ever, came out, drunker than ever, walked over to me like it was her mission. "I really like you, and the friend thing is a cop out." I responded with, "Heather, now is not a good-" and then projectile vomited some more. When I turned my head back the other direction, all I saw was her backside storming back into the house. Food poisoning explanations probably wouldn't help that situation right then.
I resigned myself to never acting on my feelings that night.
A week later, I was making out with another girl I had a passing interest in, both of us hammered, outside her dorm. It was perhaps the worst kiss in the history of time, sloppy, awkward, drunken and empty of any meaning. Mid-makeout, I thought to myself, "What the hell am I doing with my life? This is awful. I should be with Heather." It was like The Flying Spaghetti Monster reached out with his noodly appendage and demanded I date her. It felt like it had to happen, no matter the cost.
The next day, I asked her if she'd be game to help me with a project for class. She said, "Fine, whatever." Before she arrived that night, I poured two fuzzy navels, turned on the Reservoir Dogs soundtrack, and set some mood lighting. After downing both fuzzy navels, I knew I was ready. She arrived, and mid working on the project, the schnapps finally disabled my edit button and I told her I liked her too. She acquiesced. We started dating, at which point about 10 of my friends, on their own volition, and without knowledge of each others actions, each cornered me at various times and said if I hurt her, they'd kill me. One of them actually slammed me against the wall to make the point.
2 years later, I proposed. She ran out of the room, yelling "NO!" (Note to self: Don't propose in a flooded basement, when your love has just come home from work, still in her uniform, reeking of pizza.) I dragged her back in, asked again. She acquiesced. We got married, in epic fashion. There were people under tables hiding bottles of booze, bagpipes, and electric sliding.
Looking back on that time in my life, and ever since my wedding (10 years ago), I can't imagine anyone else that I ever dated, or wanted to hook up with that I could imagine spending the rest of my life with. She gets me. She tolerates my flaws. She even embraces them on occasion. She knows me better than I do. And she still has the patience to stick around. Anyone who can tolerate me this long clearly is The One. She can't make spoons bend with her mind, but the fact that she's still with me is just as impressive. Also, she's funny, smart, beautiful, and was willing to perform a couple genetic experiments by having kids with me, which is beyond impressive and borders on saintly.
I met my wife my freshman year of college. I was an obnoxious spaz, she was very quiet and reserved. I was making a video to send home to friends, and went around introducing everyone on camera. When I got to her, I said "this is Lennon's roommate, Heather." She responded with, "I'm not Lennon's roommate, Heather. I'm Heather." That wit struck me instantly, however I continued on my way, disregarding it, knowing she was funny, but not for me. She instantly hated me and wished I would take a valium.
That year I managed to trick someone else into being my first college girlfriend. It was an intense 5 months. I thought I was in love. When she dumped me, I crashed hard, and wrote really lame things in a journal for the next 5 months. I swore I would never date anyone I was close friends with first again, so I would never get hurt.
Over the next two years, I managed to get a reputation as drunken hookup guy. (Usually I was the drunk one, as I couldn't muster up as much courage sober.) Our junior year, Heather, now a very close friend, came up to me, drunk at a party, and said she really liked me. I said, "I know," then kept on partying. My douchiness did not seem to deter her.
The next party, a week later, she took another stab at it, with as much liquid courage as I usually medicated with. "I really like you." I responded with, "Heather, I know, but I refuse to ruin another friendship by dating someone I'm such good friends with." She stormed off, saying, "whatever."
Finally, the next week, I realized I could be wrong. I started considering. I went to lunch. Something in said lunch made me sick. That night, at the next party, before having an ounce to drink, I ran outside, and started puking off the front porch. Heather, more determined than ever, came out, drunker than ever, walked over to me like it was her mission. "I really like you, and the friend thing is a cop out." I responded with, "Heather, now is not a good-" and then projectile vomited some more. When I turned my head back the other direction, all I saw was her backside storming back into the house. Food poisoning explanations probably wouldn't help that situation right then.
I resigned myself to never acting on my feelings that night.
A week later, I was making out with another girl I had a passing interest in, both of us hammered, outside her dorm. It was perhaps the worst kiss in the history of time, sloppy, awkward, drunken and empty of any meaning. Mid-makeout, I thought to myself, "What the hell am I doing with my life? This is awful. I should be with Heather." It was like The Flying Spaghetti Monster reached out with his noodly appendage and demanded I date her. It felt like it had to happen, no matter the cost.
The next day, I asked her if she'd be game to help me with a project for class. She said, "Fine, whatever." Before she arrived that night, I poured two fuzzy navels, turned on the Reservoir Dogs soundtrack, and set some mood lighting. After downing both fuzzy navels, I knew I was ready. She arrived, and mid working on the project, the schnapps finally disabled my edit button and I told her I liked her too. She acquiesced. We started dating, at which point about 10 of my friends, on their own volition, and without knowledge of each others actions, each cornered me at various times and said if I hurt her, they'd kill me. One of them actually slammed me against the wall to make the point.
2 years later, I proposed. She ran out of the room, yelling "NO!" (Note to self: Don't propose in a flooded basement, when your love has just come home from work, still in her uniform, reeking of pizza.) I dragged her back in, asked again. She acquiesced. We got married, in epic fashion. There were people under tables hiding bottles of booze, bagpipes, and electric sliding.
Looking back on that time in my life, and ever since my wedding (10 years ago), I can't imagine anyone else that I ever dated, or wanted to hook up with that I could imagine spending the rest of my life with. She gets me. She tolerates my flaws. She even embraces them on occasion. She knows me better than I do. And she still has the patience to stick around. Anyone who can tolerate me this long clearly is The One. She can't make spoons bend with her mind, but the fact that she's still with me is just as impressive. Also, she's funny, smart, beautiful, and was willing to perform a couple genetic experiments by having kids with me, which is beyond impressive and borders on saintly.
Romantic comedy formula a vast majority of the time is:
Guy meets girl. Guy gets girl. Guy loses girl. Guy gets girl back.
You can flip the genders there or have different variations as well.
As we know, it doesn't always work that way.
The reason romantic comedies are so popular is that we WISH IT WAS THAT WAY, thus we go see them in the theater and dream and hope that it happens to us. Or we go to them on a date because, gosh, maybe me and this person I'm sitting next to are meant for each other like that.
Yes, you can find that one person that stands out amongst the crowd. Love at first sight. Final realization of love after personalities clash (When Harry Met Sally). It happens. I speak from experience as a happily married man who went through many a girl before meeting the love of my life.
But, if you want to watch a romantic comedy that best showcases the REALITY of relationships and love, look no further than 500 Days of Summer. It showcases the ups, the downs, and I won't give away the ending here. But it's perhaps the perfect representation of how love in our lives goes as time passes by.
Guy meets girl. Guy gets girl. Guy loses girl. Guy gets girl back.
You can flip the genders there or have different variations as well.
As we know, it doesn't always work that way.
The reason romantic comedies are so popular is that we WISH IT WAS THAT WAY, thus we go see them in the theater and dream and hope that it happens to us. Or we go to them on a date because, gosh, maybe me and this person I'm sitting next to are meant for each other like that.
Yes, you can find that one person that stands out amongst the crowd. Love at first sight. Final realization of love after personalities clash (When Harry Met Sally). It happens. I speak from experience as a happily married man who went through many a girl before meeting the love of my life.
But, if you want to watch a romantic comedy that best showcases the REALITY of relationships and love, look no further than 500 Days of Summer. It showcases the ups, the downs, and I won't give away the ending here. But it's perhaps the perfect representation of how love in our lives goes as time passes by.
No. Falling in love is very similar to going insane.
Your body is infused with the drugs dopamine and PEA. See wikipedia on PEA: http://en.wikipedia.org/w
If you are truly "in love" or infatuated you may be affected in a number of ways, including:
1. inability to sleep
2. inability to eat
3 mood swings
There is not a lot that is comedic about it.
Your body is infused with the drugs dopamine and PEA. See wikipedia on PEA: http://en.wikipedia.org/w
If you are truly "in love" or infatuated you may be affected in a number of ways, including:
1. inability to sleep
2. inability to eat
3 mood swings
There is not a lot that is comedic about it.
There's a quote that I've been wanting to track down that goes something like:
"An adventure is something that someone else has while you're comfortably at home reading about it. When it's you, you're usually just miserable, uncomfortable, hungry, and worried about dying."
I've never had a romance that was anything like a romantic comedy, and certainly none of my opportunities to fall in love was like that. Romantic comedies are generally not much different than tragedies, except that everything mysteriously goes right in the end despite everything being against the couple. They usually involve people who are barely in control of their own limbs, much less their lives.
In my history, falling in love was all about not screwing something up and convincing the other person that I was a worthless idiot, while simultaneously attempting to prove to them that I'm worthwhile. The general result of this was anxiety and a perpetual concern about whether I was fooling myself about her being worth it.
In my final romance, falling in love was much more dramatic, but definitely not the substance of comedies. They say that magnetism is 10^36 times as powerful as gravity, and that's what this was like. Within two weeks of knowing each other, we were shoving obstacles out of the way with reckless abandon. She left her husband (a whole story embedded there, too), I threw out my roommate, ignored the advice of co-workers and wound up out of a job (we worked together). Relatives, friends, and anyone else who weren't happy with our courtship were dropped by the wayside because we both knew that the only thing that mattered for us any more was being together. Years of caution felt like the smell of burning break pads as we were inexorably drawn (and stayed) together.
Exciting, yes. Comedic? No.
"An adventure is something that someone else has while you're comfortably at home reading about it. When it's you, you're usually just miserable, uncomfortable, hungry, and worried about dying."
I've never had a romance that was anything like a romantic comedy, and certainly none of my opportunities to fall in love was like that. Romantic comedies are generally not much different than tragedies, except that everything mysteriously goes right in the end despite everything being against the couple. They usually involve people who are barely in control of their own limbs, much less their lives.
In my history, falling in love was all about not screwing something up and convincing the other person that I was a worthless idiot, while simultaneously attempting to prove to them that I'm worthwhile. The general result of this was anxiety and a perpetual concern about whether I was fooling myself about her being worth it.
In my final romance, falling in love was much more dramatic, but definitely not the substance of comedies. They say that magnetism is 10^36 times as powerful as gravity, and that's what this was like. Within two weeks of knowing each other, we were shoving obstacles out of the way with reckless abandon. She left her husband (a whole story embedded there, too), I threw out my roommate, ignored the advice of co-workers and wound up out of a job (we worked together). Relatives, friends, and anyone else who weren't happy with our courtship were dropped by the wayside because we both knew that the only thing that mattered for us any more was being together. Years of caution felt like the smell of burning break pads as we were inexorably drawn (and stayed) together.
Exciting, yes. Comedic? No.
