Ah the value of that someone who initiates the chase. As pertains to common romantic endeavors normally that's the guy. But in some circumstance it can actually be the woman. Such is the case in one of my all-time favorite romantic comedy movies of all-time, "13 Going on 30" (2004: Jennifer Garner, Mark Ruffalo). I was re-watching this movie for what must be about the 20th time last week, when it dawned on me just how important the romantic pursuer is.
So what does the romantic pursuer do? A romantic pursuer is the one in a potential pairing that intiates contact between the two parties with a romantic intent.
In "13 Going on 30" Jenna Rink (Jennifer Garner's character) is the one who intiates contact with Matt Flemhaff (Mark Ruffalo's character). At first Jenna Rink initiates contact with Matt Flemhaff because a 13 year-old-girl has awoken in the body of her 30-year-old self, and wants her former childhood sweatheart and best friend to help her make sence of what's happened to her. Later, Jenna has the idea of using Matt as photographer to help her with a re-design of the NY-based magazine that she works for. Finally, Jenna initiates romantic contact with Matt when she crashes his wedding, meets Matt in his bedroom and confesses her love for him. All throughout this movie, Jenna is the agressor in this potential romantic pairing.
Anyway, once I recognized this truth, I knew I had to do a post about in my "Exploring Issues in Rom-com Movies" series. Why? Because this is an important issue that is worthy of being discussed.
I am a big PROPENT of the life-lessons that people can glean from romantic comedy movies. I think rom-com's CAN help people learn what works and doesn't work when endeavoring to have relationships with members of the opposite sex. Too bad for me I only started really seriously considering the themes and issues that "good" rom-coms pose untill I was already in my early 20s (I'm now in my mid-40s, btw).
As I can personally attest to real-life experience may well not prepare you at all for potenial romances, and sizing things up and having your head in the right place so you succeed in your own romantic undertakings.
My friends growing up in high school talked very crassly about girls, and sadly a lot of that rubbed off on me and stuck in the back corners of my mind. There was almoast no talk about what should and shouldn't be said to girls that you liked so as to potentially go out on dates with, and normal stuff like that. After a while I developed a mindset that the girls I liked where angels, demi-gods that I needed to tread lightly around. But there was something even worse I devoloped over time that doomed me far worse than the bad seeds my friends sowed and my putting women up on a pedastal; I had a false idea of what romance between a guy and a girl should be, and it was one that DIDN'T involve effort from me. Rather, it was serpendipuous, a "we were just meant to be" mentallity. If I was to be with a given girl God, the fates, or circumstance would magically bring us together, then things would just click.
THAT erroneous pie-in-the-sky mentality has kept me on the sidelines for waaay to long. I have no one to blame. It's my fault. BUT FINALLY I 've come to something that I believe to be true:
The guy is meant to be the romatic pursuer in a given actual or potential romantic pairing
For YEARS I feared that if I didn't do it exactly right I would blow my one and only chance with a given girl. This lead to me waiting, and waiting, and waiting for the the "right time" to spring something special on a girl I was interested in. This too is a grevious error. Why? Because romance is supposed to be a little spontanteous and clumsy. But the victor (or pursuer) gets the prize. Even if the girl totally shoots you down, IF you lay yourself out there only good things can happen. For starters, you're not waisting time.
Being coy--especially if you're a guy--is the WORST THING you can do if you want to be romantically active with someone
For YEARS I tried to be aloof and exhude an aura of being ca-ule (cool with an attidude), but I think this serpindipuous mindset of mine was wrong. "O, I'll just play hard to get. Be ca-ule, and eventually the forses of romance will work on the other party to the point where they'll do the work for me." Growing up, after I became romantically intereted in a member of the opposite sex, I was always looking for clues from them that they liked me, then hoping a crescendo of feelings would build in them which drew them to me.
The first girl I ever worked the courage up to asking out I waited like 6 to 9 months before I did so. We were both working at a Kentucky Fried Chicken. I was 19 and going to a community college, and she was a junior in a near by high school. The girl I liked was pretty and flirty, a little heavy set, but a sexy kind of heavy set. She was a long haired blonde. I was attracted to her, though I was NEVER really sure what she thought about me. O, and she had just come out of rehab for cocaine. THAT should have been a red flag, but when you're smitten with someone you oftentimes overload key details.
Like I said I waited a LONG TIME before I worked up the courage to actually ask this girl out on a date. We went out, had a couple kissing make-out sessions, one in which I think I could have slept with her if I just went into her house, BUT I wanted to hear she love me before we had sex so I backed out. Because of her drug past, her parents were monitoring her pretty good, so she had a lot of built in excuses not to see me. Still, because of the kissing I thought she was my girlfriend--untill another guy rolled up the restaurant driving her car holding up a pair of her panties for her to come and get. She was all smiles and playfully went out to her car and got her property from the this guy who looked like a total logging hick. Later, when I could get her alone, I questioned her asking why she thought she could do something like that when she was my girlfriend. At this point this girl said something to me that I will never forget, "I don't have boyfriends, I just have friends." Holy fuck, I didn't think such rationale existed! I thought boyfriend/girlfriend was the norm, and that when you reached that point your relationship was safe and that your guarded it. Anyway, I knew I loved hit girl she was was my first love, and I ASSUMED, in my naive mind, that she felt the same. Obviously I was seriously wrong.
This is a huge romantic fallacy: the belief that because you believer and behave a certain way, others will as well
This girl saw absolutely nothing wrong with screwing other guys and not telling me what she was doing. She never gave any thought about what my reaction to one her "friends" rolling up in car with a pair of her panties in his hands would have on me. I needed to a have a "where exactly we stand" conversation early on, long before the panties-in-the-glove-compartment incident.
So what ended up happening? I started looking for a new job, got one, then had a couple more encounters with my first, real crush--that actually led to something, then never saw her again. I got a job at another fast food restaurant, she came up to the drive-up and wanted some freebees, which I actually gave her! Then on one other occasion she frequented the dining room area of the restaurant I worked at with a guy who I think was her steady boyfriend; I think she was trying to show me that she COULD have a steady boyfriend, but I'm not sure. But what I do know for sure is that my first foray into romance came YEARS later than it should have, it ended poorly, and I handled it badly.
"It's better to have lost at love, then never to have loved at all"
Actual lyrics sung by Brett Michals of the heavy metal band, Poison on the song "I Won't Forget You" which was released in the late 80s but was never a big hit for them.
So why bother bring up my personal expecience? Maybe my life-lessons on proud miss-display, can help someone. My first real crush and how poorly it ended hit me very hard, and it really shouldn't have. If I only had more romantic exchanges with other girls this very bad experience wouldn't have been so devastating for me.
I so wished I had the guts to be a more confident romantic pursuer when I was younger--and even now. But alas I never had a good gathering of friends so I was always negotiating the terms of my love-life from a severe disadvantage. Going out from a group of friends to pursue a girl is a lot more easier to do that the go-it-alone way I was forced to endure because I had either very bad friends or no friends at all. But at least now I'm mature enough to see some of my romantic missconceptions, and TRY to form a more healthy view of what romance should be. I just wish I could have reached this state much earlier in my life. Hence, some of the reason why I watch romantic comedies so much: I'm trying to learn and pick up tips, myself to make-up for the real life experience I'm denied in day-to-day living, and never got from the friends I had in my past.
The crazy thing about myself is that as I look back and see what I did and the reasons why I did them, I realize how error-filled my thinking is and was about women and romance.
Romance is supposed to be messy. It's better to be clumsy and fumble about, than to wait for the perfect chance to strike (which may never come), and will certainly led to unneccary heartache and waisted time.
The best way to get over having your heart broke is to have another romance with someone else. Don't stew over the failed relationship, move on and overwrite that bad experience with a fresh and new love interest.
Be active in your love life. If you have feelings for someone, act on them. Even if they shoot you down, at least you know where you stand, and aren't waisting your time.
So in conclusion, going forward am I going to be this suave guy who just sweeps women off their feet? Naw, that's not me. I'm just going to give myself a little grace and hopefully put in a better effort and try. I now think talking is the key to romance. I think I just need start conversing with girls, try to build up some kind of repetore and go from there. Unfortunately when you hit your 40s the pool of availble and willing females is really dries up. So I totally realize a lot of this self-improvement talk is probably a little to little, and a little too late.
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