4 Bad Dating Habits Learned From Romantic Comedies
Romantic comedies, while fun to watch, give us some bad ideas about how love really works.
I've been watching rom-coms my entire life. We all have. We know the couple will end up together but we relish the drama anyway, and while it seems like harmless fun, they've given us a terrible blueprint for how to date. I admit that I'm indoctrinated, but at least I've come to recognize it.
I'm not talking about the no-brainers. Everybody knows that you don't wake up one day and realize you love your best dude friend. I'm talking about the stuff that you may not even think you learned from Eternal Sunshine, but that you're secretly sabotaging your relationships because of Kate Winslet. Lemondrop: The New Hollywood Heartthrob: The Nice Guy
Here are four things I've discovered that Hollywood is miserably wrong about.
Rule #1: All a girl really needs is a sweet, goofy guy.
We've all been in terrible relationships. They may be abusive, or they may just be quietly unhappy. If you subscribe to the idea set forth by dozens of romantic movies, some slightly daffy guy is eventually going to come along, fall in love with all of your imperfections and make you realize how special you are. Movies reinforce the belief that women should wait around for some deus ex machina in the form of a charming, worshipful dude to validate our existences and prove that somebody will ultimately accept us and all of our foibles. It's like a kind of castrated knight-in-shining-armor deal. Every woman wants to think that some nice guy will rescue her from the sea of a-holes. But, ladies, if your dating life sucks, work to make it better yourself. Don't wait for somebody to come along and complete you. Lemondrop: The Worst Boyfriends From Television and Movies
#2: Getting over your baggage is noble—nay, romantic.
How many movies have you seen where a suitor works extra hard to earn the love of a damaged mate? Because when you have emotional baggage in a movie, you are an enigma wrapped in a sexy mystery. In reality, having trust issues—or dating somebody with them—is lonely and miserable. Letting emotional ghosts haunt your current relationships isn't sexy—it's exhausting. Trying to fix somebody is as bad as waiting to be fixed yourself. So if you've got baggage, instead of casting yourself as Clementine Kruczynski, cast yourself in a movie where you deal with your issues before you try to build something with somebody. OK, it'd be a boring movie, but a much happier life. Lemondrop: He Said/She Said Advice—He Said "I Love You" Too Soon
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Discussion
For this exact reason I think that the movie Marley and Me, which goes from the beginning of courtship all the way through marriage, kids, job changes, etc, is a much better model for folks to be seeing than your standard rom com.
