The Trouble With Rom-Coms

I have recently begun to notice that being a college aged woman has afforded me with unique position in life. And a unique set of supposed desires.

For instance, Friday nights not spent out on the town are supposed to be spent with "my girls"-- "my squad", "my sistahs", or whatever monikers you want to put on my group of female friends. Stereotypically, a night like this would include make-overs, fuzzy socks, gossip, nails, and yes-- the typical Rom-Com.

I don't have anything much against Romantic Comedies. I don't. Aside from the fact that I don't typically like them. But I understand why other people do.

And maybe it's because of college(or rather in spite of it), but I have found myself developing a taste for the occasional Rom-Com. Though, I'm still pretty selective about the ones that I'll give the time of day.

After all, as my homie Oscar Wilde once said, "Life imitates Art far more than Art imitates Life".

And at first I thought that sounded rather pretentious. But after watching enough Rom-Coms, I think that phrase might be more accurate than I originally gave Oscar credit for.

Here's the problem with our Rom-Com culture. Especially for its prime viewers-- largely college aged or twenty-something women who are often single, a bit lonely, and more than a little salty about it.  

You see, in our culture, we have begun to use Rom-Coms as the barometer of a healthy relationship.

A few things I have noticed from my Rom-Com viewing. And note, I am no expert nor do I claim to be a film connoisseur,  as there is many a Rom-Com that I have left untried.  But Rom-Coms typically feature young adults who are:

1) dating

2) single and soon to be dating

3) friends with benefits

4) recently divorced and looking for a second chance

Note: there are rarely Rom-Coms that feature young married couples.  After all, normally, the man gets down on one knee and pops the question at the end of the movie. After some hilarious mishaps, a cheesy over-the-top date...and a scene or two of passionate sex if the couple hasn't already been living together for a while.

Hm. It seems these Rom-Coms don't really make a convincing case for chastity--- do they?

But why is that a problem?

Surely, chastity is impossible, unrealistic, and an invention of the patriarchy, right?

After all, we have birth control now. Women can have sex as casually and carefree as a man. Ah, sweet liberation. Why do we even need chastity among consenting adults anymore if pregnancy can be avoided?

Well. I can think of a few reasons.

It may seem strange for me to say that we let Rom-Coms set the barometer on our relationships. It may seem like a foolish, naive ravings of a virginal college girl.

Maybe it is. Maybe it isn't.

But here are a few things I've noticed:

I've also noticed that we females have developed a sort of 'check-list' of sorting and figuring guys out. If one of them takes you to dinner, buys you flowers, makes you food, says you look pretty--- then he's doing everything right. And I agree, he is doing things right. Just not....everything. Most of the time, it is here that a check-list ends. But it seems we've left off a few steps haven't we? Is he virtuous? Does he care about your deeply held moral convictions? Your religion? Does he want the same future as you? Does he treat your family with respect? Is fidelity important to him? Does he pray with you? Too often, I feel like we fall into the trap of making a surface-level check-list and as soon as a man fulfills the basics, we consider him worthy to be handed our hearts and bodies. In fact, if he complete said check-list it is almost assumed we are obliged to hand over our hearts and bodies--- no strings attached.

But sure, any frat-boy can buy flowers at WalMart. But it takes a man to lay down his life for you.

And in some bizarre way, I think this all stems from our desire for our lives to imitate what we see on those screens. After all, how many times do we say 'it was so perfect, it was just like the movies', or 'I wish we could just have a night like that one scene in '______'

After all, life seems so much easier in those movies. In those movies, there's no screaming match or slammed door that can't be fixed by passionate sex.  

After all, in those movies, the perfect proposal and engagement ring solves every ill or past heart-break.

We can assume that these fictional couples live happily-ever-after because we are never invited to see what happens after the end credits. But I don't think it's a secret that in world setting the bar for the highest divorce rate in human history, it goes to show that many couples believe putting on rings in the sight of their friends, family with erase and censure any reservations or problems.

And I daresay in many couples cases (though definitely not all, as each marriage situation is different), perhaps it is because Mr. Right, had to meet only one very short list of requirements to be considered  to be doing everything right.

With phrases thrown around on college campuses like 'Ring Before Spring', and other euphemisms for marriage it seems like many of my generation rush into marriage without taking the time to plum the proper depths of the other person, the relationship, and the possible problems therein.

After all, if the marriage or relationship doesn't work out, well.....he must not have been 'The One'. Time to go back to the drawing board...

And I don't mean to sound overly-critical, (though no doubt I do to some), but this honestly comes from a place of compassion and pity. After all, for a variety of reasons too numerous to name here, we women often-times as soon as puberty shoves us out onto center stage as terrified and newly metamorphosed adults, we are gripped with a deep-seated insecurity and feelings of insufficiency.

An insecurity that leads us to sleeping with the pretty boy who bought you the fancy dinner, because after all, don't you owe him, and isn't this what first dates are for, and maybe, just maybe this will make him... stay?

After all, he bought you flowers.  Check.

He smells good. Check.

He's funny. Check.

These standards  we create based on our falsified views of love and romance, create cultural expectations and a sort of formula our relationships  are supposed to follow.

These expectations inevitably poison us and keep us in a cycle of relationships that aren't good for us, despite the fact, that on paper, they show the hallmarks of the ideal.

A Nigerian writer, speaker, and women's right's activist, founder of Culture of Life Africa, Obianuju Ekeocha, once wrote that girls in Nigeria had relatively little trouble understanding the privacy and sacredness of sex, and living lives of chastity and abstinence, but now "many African girls are no longer sure about moral sexual ethics thanks to the wide-spread influence of Western media, movies, and magazines."

Hm. Curious how that works.

Because, here, we have been taught for so long here in the Western world, that our personalities and hearts are not enough to make a man stay. We owe him our body too. It's practically expected. And isn't it expected that we move in together. I mean, we've been dating for over a year now and

After all.

 He dresses nice. Check.

He paid for dinner. Check.

He tells you you're pretty. Check.

And please, please, maybe he could be the one. Because if you don't take him, then he's gone. And then you won't find anyone half as good. Maybe the next one won't even check off half the list. And then you'll end up having to settle.

We always talk about settling. About missing out on true love and settling for someone less than our absolute soul- mate. But as a culture we are settling. Big time.

We've settled for our partners asking for nude pics over texts and thinking that's sexy.

We've settled for  our partners watching porn and calling that healthy

We've settled for our partners ditching after a year or two or three of cohabitation and called that a break up.

We've settled for Facebook messages and called that communication.

We've settled for a dinner and sex and called that a first date

We've settled for Netflix and sex and called that chilling

We've settled for an 'I'm sorry text' and called that reconciliation

But you see, I don't really blame us. I can't. Without any examples of what real, true love looks like. Without any examples of self-sacrificing, messy, faith-based, grounded love, how could you expect any different? Without any idea of what intentional dating or sacramental marriage is lived out--- how could we ever be expected to do anything else but for us to live in a casual dating and hook-up culture where marriage is merely a thing 'some people do' rather than a goal of all dating relationships?

Without these examples, without these witnesses, my generation doesn't know where to begin. When all we have are examples like this--- no wonder we are locked into this cycle.

When condoms are handed out on college campuses under the pretense of 'health and wellness', no wonder it feels unnatural to wait.

When abstinence is equated with repression and is treated like a burden-- no wonder it feels impossible.

And when Rom-Coms are no longer treated as fiction and treated as some sort of standard---

no wonder we are in a marriage crisis.

Don't get me wrong. I have nothing against a Rom-Com night with my roommates. I don't have anything against Rom- Coms. But I do have something against what they have done to our culture.

I want movies that give me an example. I want movies that treat chastity as casually as most movies treat sex. I want movies where couples are chaste and authentic and don't draw attention to themselves for being such. (As well-intentioned as the movie Old Fashioned is, it isn't exactly fraught with realism). I want movies where couples uphold each others' dignity and keep each other accountable. I want movies were couples fight for, die for, and are real with each other. (And more real than just making fart-jokes around each other). The kind of real that doesn't just involve wearing no make-up, or telling the truth. A kind of real that involves  caring for each other-- body and soul, not just pondering if we even have a soul (sorry, John Green, your couples don't quite fit the bill). A kind of real where couples care for each others' virtue, values, and spiritual health. A kind of real where each person has the end goal of sanctity for the other person.

A kind of real where a couple doesn't settle.

Now, this may all seem very idealist. But then again, I have always been one to dream big. But for me, that kind of fairy-tale love where the prince slays the dragon, climbs the tower, and sails the ocean for his love sounds like a far better and more desirable love to me. And far more sustainable and tangible than a love composed of carnal desire and quirky mishaps followed by the right dash of charm and humor. *Cue recent acoustic cut of popular song playing in background while rain softly patters on windowpane*.

 Maybe that's why GK Chesterton once wrote expressing the sentiment that 'fairytales are more than true...'

The trouble with Rom-Coms, and with Art, is that sooner or later, life begins to look a lot like them.

But if my love is merely to be composed of Polaroid moments, Instagram-worthy selfies, and casual sex, not directed towards any other purpose than pleasure or fun then really---

Is it love at all?

Omnia Gratia Sunt.