It’s easy to feel shortchanged when you compare your long-term partner to the adoring, witty alpha males in your favourite rom-coms. If the most romantic thing he’s done lately is call in a Domino’s Meat Feast, and his proposal was a mumbled effort over dinner in your local, you may long to ditch him in favour of someone who truly appreciates you.
But the truth is: Rom-coms would be awful in real life. Those men would be exhausting. So here are the truths about real-life relationships that rom-coms won’t tell you. Settle back and open the popcorn.
1. You won’t start off hating him
From the screwball comedies of the ’40s to When Harry Met Sally and beyond, the biggest lie in all rom-coms is that instant hatred leads eventually to falling helplessly in love.
That know-all, mansplaining colleague… your brother’s dorky best friend… the ex who dumped you 20 years ago… all that loathing and back-chat sparks sudden, unexpected passion, right? Er, wrong. If you’re spitting and snarling from the outset, you’re in for a life of misery, not magic.
2. You don’t have to quit your career
Most women in rom-coms start off hopelessly uptight and enormously successful (see Sandra Bullock in The Proposal or Reese Witherspoon in Sweet Home Alabama).
But while they may be killing it at work, these women are Not Happy, and will joyfully and immediately give up their career once they meet The One. Obviously, this is ocean-going garbage. If The One is worth anything, he’ll be cheering on your success, not sulking pettily because you have to go to a work thing and he wanted to have the guys round for a barbecue.
3. You won’t have a personality transplant
There’s always a point, about a third into the film, where the prissy, sensible heroine suddenly lets her hair down unexpectedly, proving that she’s wildly fun and spontaneous.
It’s true that you might shock your partner by being surprisingly terrible at karaoke, or get drunker than he ever imagined on cheap prosecco at the office party – but if you’re normally the type to get home by 10 in time for the news, you’re not going to suddenly leap on top of a taxi and start tap-dancing. With most of us, what you see is what you get.
4. There may not be ‘A Moment’
Generally, good relationships blossom gradually, through dating to pleasant co-habiting. They don’t pivot on one glorious Moment That Changes Everything – like John Cusack standing under the window with a boombox in Say Anything, or the marching band serenade in 10 Things I Hate about You.
So if you feel disappointed that your engagement ring wasn’t delivered by a Halloween parade, and he didn’t declare his love with a dancing flashmob, stop. It’s far more normal to propose over a nice meal.
5. You won’t fall for your best friend
It’s somewhat unlikely that you’ll make friends with a handsome, straight male and utterly fail to notice that you’re attracted to each other (see Just Good Friends or Friends With Benefits).
Even as you suffer through relationships with awful men, and he’s always there to eat ice cream with you, you’ll somehow both remain blind to the burning passion that could spark into life at any moment? This doesn’t happen.
If the guy’s your best friend and you fancy him, marry him – don’t spend 10 years sobbing on his shoulder while you both miserably date other people.
6. You don’t have to test his love
The Airport Dash™ Is the cornerstone of many rom-coms. But it only ever happens because there’s been a ridiculous misunderstanding culminating in someone getting on a plane, and disappearing forever. See also ‘not turning up at the top of the Empire State Building, because for some reason, nobody thought to check the traffic.’
In real life, however, most misunderstandings are simply resolved with a brief text message or a quick bout of sulking. Making someone ‘prove’ their commitment by refusing to communicate and simply disappearing is the behaviour of a sociopath.
All the more reason to be glad you live in the real world – and not a rom-com.
