I regard romantic comedies as a subgenre of sci-fi, in which the world operates according to different rules than my regular human world.
— Mindy Kaling
In January, after I selected my “happiness tasks”, I decided to write out a calendar for the year, scheduling each of the 52 weeks up front. I did this mainly for two reasons: to align certain tasks (like sitting on a park bench) with appropriate weather, and to maintain momentum, hopefully increasing my chances of making it until December. If I pre-determined each week, I’d have something to look forward to and I wouldn’t be mired by analysis paralysis every Monday (What should I do this week? Hmm…oh crap, it’s Thursday). Being cheeky, I picked “Watch a Romantic Comedy” for this week because it just so happened to fall around Valentine’s Day.
I have several feelings about Valentine’s Day, the predominant one these days being indifference. This beast of a corporate holiday (oh look, another feeling!) follows us around from early childhood, forever changing shape. It starts in school, when you (or your Mum) prints the name of every kid in your kindergarten class on a Disney-themed “Be Mine”, and during the emotional rollercoaster of sending cards and candy grams to unrequited high school crushes, hoping you aren’t the only kid left at the end of the day without a pile of cards on their desk. This drama turns into social anxiety as people begin to “pair off” and celebrate a new form of Valentine’s Day with extravagant gifts, expensive dinners, and dozens of roses. The tokens of “love” change, but the social currency stays the same. For example, I once knew a woman whose purchase of a new family vehicle happened to coincide with February 14th, so she proclaimed on social media that it was the “best Valentine’s gift ever!” The bigger the “gift”, the bigger the love bragging rights, right?
I know, it sounds like I have a massive heart-shaped chip on my shoulder, but I honestly don’t hate Valentine’s Day. I do raise an eyebrow at what it does to some people, but I suppose that’s really not my business. For the record, I am happily married and have often turned down the opportunity to celebrate the holiday because we are capable of being thoughtful towards each other without the calendar reminder (plus, it’s nearly impossible to get a dinner reservation).
So, what pairs well with flowers, heart-shaped chocolates, and social expectations? Romantic Comedies. To be honest, RomCom is not my favourite film genre. I will rewatch a few now and again, mostly for sentimental reasons. My Mum kept a copy of “Bridget Jones’s Diary” by her bed so I will watch that now and again, and every Christmas I watch “Love Actually” (we also watch Die Hard and Christmas Vacation). What better day to sit through someone else’s love story than Valentine’s Day?
The article that this suggestion came from provided absolutely no explanation for why a romantic comedy should make me happy. Disturbingly, most articles I’ve found online actually say the opposite is true and that you should really debrief and detox after viewing, so the experience doesn’t negatively affect your relationship. After all, sometimes an expensive gift comes out of a joint account, and these days running through an airport will probably get you shot.
I thought about my task this week and yes, I could watch a RomCom and heckle all the way through, sarcastically tearing apart every cliche and plot defect. Conversely, I could earnestly absorb every saccharin detail and cloying affectation. Will it make me happy? Will it be so silly that I’m left feeling grateful for my own romantic life? Will it make me laugh? No harm in trying to find out.
Crazy, Stupid, Airplane.
This week I spent two days in Atlanta, GA for a conference. I flew out Monday night and returned in the wee hours of Thursday morning. I thought that evenings in a hotel would be an ideal time for RomCom viewing; however, I ended up being either too busy or too tired to switch on the hotel room TV. Because my goal was to absorb the wisdom of at least one Romantic Comedy, I decided to download Crazy, Stupid, Love on my phone and watch it on the flight home. I picked this movie because I had seen it several times before and it was one of the more palatable RomComs available for download on Netflix. I remember liking it so I figured I couldn’t go wrong. After all, what else was I going to do for the two hours?
I’m sure I could write a relatively entertaining play-by-play of Crazy, Stupid, Love, followed by a detailed analysis of what was wrong with each “romantic” relationship. Would that make me happy (or benefit literally anyone)? More than likely not, and I bet the internet is already full of that. Instead, here are some of my in-the-moment thoughts from the sky:
I don’t remember the first ten minutes of this movie being so icky. I’ve seen it many times for some reason (Ryan Gosling) and I don’t remember squirming in my seat quite so much. Man, this is hard to watch on a dark flight because so much of the beginning takes place in a dark restaurant, outside at night, in a dark club, and my phone screen keeps automatically dimming. Every version of “love” so far is disturbing. What would I do if I were Cal and my wife just told me she wanted a divorce and that she’d slept with Kevin Bacon? Should they get back together? Why is this narrative trying to force me to feel sympathy with the cheating spouse? Heaven forbid the poor guy sleeps with someone else in the wake of his pending divorce. What a monster. Oh my god the FRIENDS of this couple are the worst. “Claire said I can’t be friends with you any more…she said we had to choose between you and Emily.” Jeez, this paints a painfully stereotypical picture of the most depressing middle-American marriage ever. And for some reason they’ve automatically chosen to be friends with the cheater? Okay then, not my life. I remember this movie being funnier… Okay, now I’m married and my husband is a teacher so the bit where the teenage babysitter sends naked pictures to the grown man is just a tad more horrifying than it used to be. This movie has surprisingly not aged terribly well. Highlights? Ryan Gosling making eating a slice of pizza look like the sexiest thing on the planet, and Kevin Bacon (not his horrible character) being present. I love Kevin Bacon.
Ordinary, Intelligent, Affection.
In retrospect, I’m not sure why I thought that watching a RomCom (even one I thought was a favourite) would make me happy. I don’t think I truly believed it would, but there was hope. Maybe if I watched it with my husband and not alone on an airplane? That’s assuming I could convince him to sit through it. There’s maybe one scene in the movie that still makes me laugh, and I definitely don’t mind looking at Ryan Gosling and Kevin Bacon (which make me wonder why I didn’t watch Footloose instead) but overall, a fairly underwhelming experience.
Valentine’s Day
By the time Friday, February 14th rolled around, I still hadn’t watched another Romantic Comedy. I planned to have a bubble bath the day before, but when it came down to it I couldn’t convince myself to press play, choosing instead to watch the last episode of Sherlock (something else I’d already seen). On Friday evening, my husband and I sat in front of the television with our dinners, and he turned to me and asked “what do you want to watch?” Should I ask him to endure a RomCom? I mean, it is Valentine’s Day so I could probably get away with it. But do I want to watch it? Will it in any way at all make me happy? Will feeling guilty for sharing this misery somehow lead to happiness? Doing something because I once told myself it would be a good idea is not a reason for doing anything. I once stuck my finger in a pencil sharpener to see what would happen. What do I know?
So what did I do on Valentine’s Day to make me happy? I sat with my husband on our comfy couch, ate take-out sushi, and watched Ken Burns’s Vietnam documentary. Because I wanted to. Because it’s amazing, and horrifying, and learning something new makes me happy. It is probably the least romantic thing I could have chosen, but that doesn’t matter. Romantic Comedies tell you that your own life is inadequate by showing you a bunch of overly dramatic, thin, attractive, and mostly white people doing strangely problematic things. I am confident that there are real people out there who are happy to model their lives on this. I am not one of them. Happiness is not the one-size-fits-all that some RomComs would have you believe, and that’s okay. Sometimes it’s flowers and chocolates, sometimes it’s watching war documentaries in your pajamas, and sometimes it’s even crazy, and stupid, and love.
Sources
45 Things You Can Do to Get Happy No Matter Where You Are
Courtney Johnston | @CourtRJ | ( http://www.rulebreakersclub.com/) on Lifehack.org
How to Keep Romantic Comedies from Ruining Your Love Life Tchiki Davis, Ph. D. on Psychology Today
How to Be Happy 