4

All Of Your Friends Commenting On Your Relationship

My relationship talk with my friends goes like this:

Me: How's Eric?

Friend: Good.

Me: Cool. Does your belly button smell like cheese sometimes? I'm worried I might have belly button cancer.

Any relationship talk beyond that is entering the danger zone. In rom-coms, though, everyone's world is centered on a relationship that they aren't even a part of, but are somehow always into talking about. And they love it. It makes the main characters seem special and gives higher stakes to the developing relationship. For examples of this, watch any movie that has a poster with a bunch of white people looking at each other weirdly. You just know they're all thinking "Girl, this is a great conversation about potential charity work in impoverished countries. But really, HOW is Tyler's ab game?"

For the most egregious example, look at the ending of Failure To Launch, in which Matthew McConaughey is literally kidnapped and tied to a chair by his friends and family. Why? To force him to listen to his girlfriend confess her love for him, of course. Along with generally being the worst way to possibly do anything, it also sends the message that kidnapping is okay as long as it's the adorable kind.

Since I've been in a relationship for almost a decade, people tend to treat me like a mystical relationship Sherpa who will guide them up Commitment Issues Mountain and across Weird Sexual Expectations River. The truth is that relationships are super specific to who you're with, so when someone asks me "Do you think he really likes me?" I'm like, "I don't know, does he suplex you onto the bed every morning while you're trying to get ready?" Mid-dressing suplexes are a bad measure for love in most relationships, but in one that has ten years' worth of history and details and quirks, it's the standard. If my husband ever stops interrupting my morning routine by suplexing me, I'll know we're in trouble.

Being in a relationship does not qualify me to comment on someone else's, and I don't want to. I also don't want anyone else to comment on my relationship with my husband. There are literally a million other things I could talk about with my friends that don't end up killing our friendship forever because I told her to break up with a guy who isn't giving enough in the suplex department.

3

Breaking Up With The Wrong Guy For The Right One

When the main character in a rom-com breaks up with someone, that person either A) suddenly reveals they were secretly terrible the entire time, which the audience always knew, like in The Wedding Singer, or B) they are just like, "OK, I guess we weren't meant to be. Welp, no hard feelings," like in Sweet Home Alabama. Rom-coms treat breaking up like it's a magical portal you have to jump through to transport yourself to your actual happy life. It completely ignores the person left standing on the not-fun side of portal.

2

Hooking Up With Someone You Hate

Romantic comedies fucking adore the idea that a lot of good can come out of hooking up with your mortal enemies. I see it over and over again, and it makes me angry every damn time. The concept seems to be that two passionate people will butt heads and genitals, no matter what. OK, hate is A passion, but it's completely different from romantic passion, and if you don't realize that, you're in for a lot of rough relationships and a lot of awkward, sweaty ends to arguments.

Somehow, movies make these relationships look like fun, like 27 Dresses or The Ugly Truth. Apparently, hate-love is an oddly specific Katherine Heigl genre. And while it's fun to watch Heigl and James Marsden yell at each other about how they are doing love wrong, that shit would get old so fast in real life.

How many times have you watched a couple bicker at each other constantly in public and said, "God why can't I have some more of that in my life"? Because according to rom-coms, those people are going home right after the squabble is done and then throw each other all over the house with awesome fight sex movies. Also, according to rom-coms, actively fighting someone while having sex with them is a thing. And I'm sorry to break it to you, person who decided Mr. And Mrs. Smith was their romantic ideal, but ...

It's not a thing. Not even a little bit.

If I were going to attempt some dating advice, I would say that dating someone you actually like is the super secret first step to a fulfilling relationship. I know. I know. Take a second and process.

1

Random Public Makeouts

When you take a long view of making out, it's super weird. Who was the first person who said, "I'm going to lick your mouth and you're going to love it?" But we do love it. It's good old-fashioned fun. However it's less fun, and remarkably less appropriate, when you're in a crowded room full of people.

To me, this is one of the most confusing rom-com tropes. Making out in public when you aren't 14 is not okay. Also, it's not okay when you are 14, but 14-year-olds would make out with a ceramic tile if someone told them that the tile had a secret crush. You're a grown-up with a job and stuff to do. You have goals and a schedule and opportunities, and yet you're spit washing your partner's palate on the bus.

If you want to see why it's so uncomfortable, watch this amazing clip from an alternative ending to The Ugly Truth. It shows Katherine Heigl and Gerard Butler, the physical embodiment of Drakkar Noir cologne, making out without any music over it. It's just mouth sounds and sighing. (Side note: I could write an entire article dissecting this clip. At one point during the wedding speech, you hear a child scream in the distance and it's the most natural thing that happens in the entire clip.)

The point is, if there isn't an orchestra playing over your very public makeout, it's not pretty and you should not be proud of it. This is common knowledge amongst adult people. Yet 99 percent of rom-coms end with a makeout scene in a room full of other people. In The Proposal, they're literally at an office where they both work, viciously smooshing their faces together while all of their coworkers applaud. In real life, everyone looks away and thinks of baseball. Those gross sloppy kisses should be saved for the privacy of the home, during Project Runway commercials.

You can follow Lydia on Twitter.

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