M'mm, banana.

I recently read an article that was reporting on studies that have concluded that romantic comedies are “ruining” real-life romance. You don’t say?

It struck me as odd at first. We are suffering from issues like cancer and poverty, and yet somewhere out there, there is someone who has enough time (and desire) to research the effects of romance comedies on my love life. Odd. I chuckled, but I read through the article anyway. After all, who am I to judge what some other person deems noteworthy; I spend ridiculous amounts of time funneling my personal thoughts through a keyboard.

After I got over myself I found that I was slightly irritated. They write, “…romantic comedies give people unrealistic ideas about love and sex…” I thrive on the idea that if it possible for someone to think up Bill Pullman’s character from “While You Were Sleeping” then certainly a person of his caliber should exist, no? Or John Cusack’s heart wrenching scene in the rain, boom-box poised so romantically over his head? It is impossible that men like this don’t exist! Unrealistic? Bah!

And then I felt it; the icy hand of reality.

Okay, fine. I can sort of buy the idea that most men aren’t like that; dropping rings into the toll booth money exchange slot, or boom-boxes raised high in incredibly intense proclamations of love. Okay. Fine. But certainly, they must exist. Right?

Did that sound too desperate?

I’ve never been a girl of grand gesture type feats. In fact, it is wholly impressive if I can muster up with even the slightest romantically charged gesture; a poke in the nose has nearly been the extent of it. I insist then that I haven’t been ruined. And then I read on…

“Marriage counselors often see couples who believe that sex should always be perfect, and if someone is meant to be with you then they will know what you want without you needing to communicate it.” And I read it again, only I concentrated on the expecting a clairvoyant partner part (Not that I don’t appreciate the sex part, but that’s a different topic entirely). I’ve been had.

Now I won’t go as far as to blame the movies for my painful ignorance, but I will indeed recognize that it perpetuates something dangerous. I’ve always recognized that the fine and dying art of communication is key; not just to romantic relationships, but to relationships as a whole. Communication is key to life. Can you imagine if for all these hundreds and thousands of years that the creatures of the earth didn’t communicate? We’d have all been dust by now.

It’s funny to which the extent that we simply assume that things will just be understood, even without any sort of real communication. “He should just know why I’m angry.” “She should just understand that I don’t want to.” “They should get it.” But he doesn’t, nor does she; and that person way over there, they really have no idea. And despite all the confusion, and frustration, and headaches, and chaos that our closed mouth habits incur, we just keep on keeping on.

What a tangled web we weave when first we practice to expect a mind reader.

It’s seems pretty simple to deduce that just saying what you’re feeling, what you’re expecting, what you’re wanting is the most efficient, most successful way for those things to be known. I mean why wait around festering in frustration when you could just nip the whole thing in the butt right from the get-go and say, “Honey, I really don’t like it when you leave your dirty underwear in the middle of living room.”

What are we going to do next, blame movies for our lack of common sense?

So I give it to the researchers, romantic comedies may be warping our minds a little bit. There really aren’t so many “Lloyd Doblers” running around.

Ruining romance, however? I just blame us.