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Mmm, sentimentality. The driving force behind every aspect of the romance genre. Enjoyed by everyone, but largely taken advantage of by females.

It’s hard to deny those wee hours of the morning that require you to commiserate with a good sappy romance movie or book while curled up on the couch in your favorite blanket, perhaps with a box of tissues nearby, and with a bowl of popcorn and maybe even some chocolate ice cream on your lap. Work is miserable, men are liars, clothing doesn’t fit, or hey, maybe it’s just time for a good cry for the heck of it. It’s time to watch someone’s horrible life go right and end happily. Time to see lovers meet and face tragedy that will only bring them closer.

I do this once in a while, this inherent female tendency of making matters worse by watching other people’s fictionalized relationships — or, rather, by watching what I can’t have, or don’t have, or don’t know if I even want. And I’ll sink deeper into some kind of self-induced melancholy, and once in a while that’s nice to do. And it’s generally expected of females that they be very emotional overall, while watching movies or otherwise.

But I have a slight suspicion that sometimes we cry only because it’s anticipated. You can get reactions when you cry. You can also get reactions when you don’t, which takes much less effort and makes much less mess. I think that it is sometimes nice to break the gender stereotype, though it can be quite a challenge and can get some interesting reactions out of some people.

A different way of doing things

So, instead of going through the messy effort that tears create and demonstrating typical behavior a little too common to the female, I put the supposedly emotion-inducing movie in, snuggle into the sofa with my giant pillow, a bowl of ice cream on my lap, and a gleeful feeling inside of me.

I am going to enjoy this movie thoroughly; there is no doubt about it. But not because I’m going to let myself have a good cry over it. No; although tears take some effort to create, the act itself would be too easy a trap to fall into. Instead, I am going to take a positive approach. This usually involves scoffing at any making of the eyes, any cute, cliché dialogue, and any epic moment or dramatic and meaningful line. And I am going to eat my ice cream that is drenched in chocolate syrup, kept company with a crumbled up chocolate chip cookie, globs of peanut butter and marshmallow, all hidden under a soft white blanket of coconut. And I might laugh cynically any time the lead male says something touching and so sensitive, and perhaps I will roll my eyes at the girl that has no control over her pathetic heart concerning him, and I will most likely reaffirm to myself during a final kiss serenaded by swelling strings that endings never turn out that well. Reality rarely has musical accompaniment. That should be the first big clue to us that what we are watching is a big, sugarcoated lie.

Actually, a handsome hero is hard to find

Similar to the romantic comedy, I enjoy lounging (preferably on a beach or on a porch bench — anywhere frivolous, really — and with a glass of something cold and sweet and delicious) and reading unrespectable yard-sale-reject Victorian romance novels. Ones written in the ’60s and ’70s really tickle my fancy; perhaps because they were the ones my mom read when she was my age and are now stashed in the attic.

These books are remarkable because they are utterly impossible in every way. The cover gives only a small glimpse of what lies inside such a book. No girl is so well-proportioned; her hair could never look so good since she is a farm girl without a mother and probably, therefore, hardly ever washes it; no man standing beside her that handsome and rich and mysterious could possibly ride a white horse; even more, no man that handsome and rich and mysterious could possibly ride a white horse and be decent enough to rescue the girl from a life of no education, with poverty, loneliness, and a deaf and decrepit father as her only companion.

But in these books, they do. They do all the time, and every possible sad, loose end is tied up with a festive ribbon and handed to the reader on a decorative silver platter — happily and unrealistically. But there is something in me that enjoys each dramatic encounter, each wide, doe-eyed glance, each breathless statement of affection, each description of the male character that undoubtedly will contain the words “strong”, “manly”, “square jaw”, “dark eyes”, “mysterious”, and the like. In fact, rarely do I laugh out loud as much as I do while reading one of these books. They are perfectly safe — so ridiculous, that at no time will I begin to harbor impossible and unattainable ideals of what a good man should be.

If I think this way, what does that make me? A traitor?

Of course not! Maybe I’m cynical, or maybe I’m a realist. Or maybe I just like to find a good laugh in something. Is it so odd for me to have fun this way? Haven’t you noticed that although life is full of “movie moments”, they don’t tend towards the serenaded drippy kinds? They are most often like awkward moments in elevators with people — frequent and sometimes amusing, but certainly not extraordinary. They are more like trying to figure out what movie to watch in the middle of the week when everyone is too tired to really care. They are more like getting caught in the rain when you aren’t close to home and have no dry clothes to borrow. They are less like dancing in the snow or happening upon your favorite person while walking in the rain or decorating their apartment with rose petals.

So go ahead — watch all the Hugh Grant and Sandra Bullock movies you want. Go ahead and wish that you could be so lucky to meet an attractive straight man with an accent. But prepare yourself for what doesn’t happen in the movies. Know that if you do meet such a man with an accent and irresistible boyish charm that he will probably find you uninteresting, or that he will find you entirely too interesting and turn out to be a complete creep, or that he will find five other women equally interesting as you. So save yourself some disappointment. Spare your friends the misery of listening to you whine as you discover that each guy you find initially full of potential and charm and sensitivity will never meet such standards as those you find in the likes of Clark Gable or Carey Grant or, lately, Jonny Depp.

In the meantime, get over it. Get yourself some ice cream, save your tears for when you actually do get dumped. Remember that it’s important to know the enemy — and snicker your way through a good romance comedy knowing and comfortable with the fact that what you are watching is a complete lie.

Illustration by Lacey Anderson.

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