Boy meets girl and they share one of those cute little moments and laugh about it because it's normal for complete strangers to immediately fall in love and have no reservations towards this potential serial killer. And then they go through some sickly sweet and cutesy montage, usually including a picnic or some romantic walk on the beach at sunset. And then comes the heart-wrenching miscommunication. The terrible oh-so-awful bad fight, and the inevitable break-up. It's probably raining. And if the director really wanted to pull some heart-strings, the guy is crying too.
Time goes by, yada-yada-yada, and then some random day months later he sees a reflection of some stranger in the storefront window that vaguely resembles his now ex-girlfriend and it jolts him into action. Cue the race to the airport to stop her before she leaves for the moon for a billion years. At this point he buys an overpriced ticket with the oodles of money in his oversized checking account waiting to be spent and meets her on the plane. OR he's told the flight has just taken off, sadly turns around with rejection painted on his face, when he looks up and spots his lover quizzically eyeing him because she too had a moment of pause and decided to stay behind on a whim.
A slow motion intense staring contest, rushed apologies and explanations, and then finally they just decide there will never be anybody else that compares and WHAM! Makeout session. In public. It's kind of uncomfortable to watch. They come back up for air, smile, and then the epilogue scene shows them doing whatever it is that made them fall in love at the beginning of the film again with sappy music to close it out.
Once upon a time ends in yet another cliched happily ever after. If you're anything close to a normal human being you know love doesn't quite work out like that. Real life looks way more like the conflict montage in a wash-rinse-repeat cycle that doesn't end in a "I choose you, this is it, nothing else matters no matter what" speech and dramatic musical number complete with fireworks and High School Musical choreography.
I swear I'm not as cynical as it sounds right now. I like those movies, I just don't like how it makes normal people feel about real life.
I watch people. Not in the creepy sense... I don't follow them around or anything, but I pay attention to habits. I see who consistently sits next to each other, and which people seem to linger a little past the point of a casual hello... I see friendships grow into the relationship that everybody but the couple seemed to see coming. I know how to spot a crush a mile away. But for me? Well... I'm about as hopeless as it can get.
Not that I'm incapable of talking to boys, or having a relationship, because I can and I have. But I'm just clueless when it comes to how the whole process starts. What the heck is it that causes a person to desire an exclusive relationship with somebody else? Chemical attraction, mutual interests, destiny, long-term friendships...
I've seen so many different starts to dozens of relationships, and have still not been able to see a common trend in any of them. There is no consistent rhyme or reason and it confuses me. It seems like so much of who we wind up being interested in is dependent on a whole slew of unpredictable and unplanned events and circumstances that place us in a certain place at a certain time with a certain group of people around a certain person who we feel that certain twinge of "oooh" towards.
I guess that's how movies happen. But how about the relationships that come out of nowhere? The ones where you've never had any interest and then one day you have a moment where you realize you want them around. You want to spend time with them for many more reasons than your other friends.
Or what about the beginnings that you didn't even notice? You just casually grow into such a close friendship that being closer with anybody else makes no sense whatsoever.
There are so many stories. There are so many beginnings. There are even more endings. But every start and conclusion happens for a reason. Some of those reasons I've learned. Some I'm still learning, and some I may never learn. But I'm grateful. I love being able to observe the plot of a story as it unfolds. I learn from observation almost as much as I do from experience. I really don't have any answers to any of the questions I've asked. But I don't really think I'm supposed to have any answers. Where would I find adventure if I knew how these things worked?
Life is crazy, full of twists and turns, and sometimes excruciatingly mad. But I'd rather have emotions and feelings to sort through than to feel nothing at all. So whatever it is that initiates the journey for two people to fall in love forever, I'm still waiting.
