My wife recently talked me into watching one of those dreaded chick flicks with her. Men usually look forward to these events about as much as a root canal. The name of the movie, in case you are so inclined is called "Me Before You." To be fair to her it wasn't horrible in that it didn't feel like someone had taken a jack hammer to my #15 molar, although it also wasn't exactly The Grapes of Wrath either. Everyone in this movie was speaking old country English that as an American and an Okie I sometimes have a hard time following. For instance, they call cookies biscuits and pencil eraser's rubbers. Here in Oklahoma if you tried to put sausage gravy on a cookie someone might call the sheriff. We have pretty stringent etiquette rules about the uses of gravy south of the Mason Dixon Line. And while we are on the subject, I should also point out that the English words "mum" and "bum" while sounding much alike mean vastly different things. Mum is your mother, and your bum is that thing you sit on. Also, the English name for toilet paper is a "bog roll" but that is a blog entry that will stand completely on its own. And it should be pointed out in seriousness and in jest that only someone whose cheese has slid totally off their cracker would call an umbrella a bumbershoot.
I should add because I didn't exactly find the movie Kleenex worthy my wife accused me of being (and I quote) "dead inside." The other chicafide movie I have come to dread is The Notebook. Is the word chicafide a real word? If it's not it should be. Maybe I should start my own version of the Urban Dictionary. I could call it the anti-urban dictionary. Around the time that movie came out I would sometimes come in the front door from work only to hear gentle sobbing coming from the bedroom. There is a definite difference between crying and sobbing, crying comes from your eyes and sobbing starts from depth of your soul. If you listen close enough, you can definitely tell the difference. Now, at that point (as a man) you only have two options, you can either go hide in your man cave until you are certain the movie is over, or you can grab some extra TP and go console her for reasons you cannot fathom, and frankly neither can she. Either way it's going to get weird. I often grew weary of watching her with a wad of tissues in her lap while mumbling something about being a bird. The best thing I can say about this movie is it had James Garner in it, which is likely the only reason it didn't go straight to DVD. The two main characters spent most of the movie arguing about subjects that are too idiotic to contemplate yet somehow, we are supposed to believe that it was written in the stars for them to be together forever. Only Hollywood could come up with something that deluded that at the same time could be considered great entertainment. If you take away the bowl of kettle corn in your lap while watching this movie there wouldn't be much joy left in it. On the other hand, movies like this give men something to commiserate with each other about besides the fact that JB Weld is no longer new and improved. My advice is that if you ever feel the need to watch a chick flick you should watch When Harry Met Sally. It has just enough male point of view to be worthwhile and it's running time is only an hour and a half so if you end up hating it you won't feel like you wasted a whole evening.
As a general rule (as a man) you should steer as far away as possible from all Julia Roberts movies. Woman often swoon over the movie Pretty Woman, and it leaves me scratching my head. Here is the premise; an out of touch tycoon picks up a hooker because he needs directions, he ends up paying her to stay with him in his hotel for a week, and they live happily ever after watching reruns of I Love Lucy and taking baths together while he talks about what he learned in therapy. In what weird world is that considered a viable plot, let alone a blockbuster movie? If I worked at 20th century Fox and a writer put that screen play on my desk, I'd run him out of my office with a cattle prod. The truth is women in general do not want to be in love, they only want to be in love in a movie because it's the only place their fantasies can be lived out properly. In Hollywood a man never has too much garlic or spinach stuck between his teeth on a first date. People have essentially lost touch with the fact that most people are not loveable because they are perfect, it's because they are flawed, and sometimes gloriously so. No woman has hail damage on her thighs that looks like the hood of an old Skylark in the movies. And men generally don't have beer guts in the movies either, mainly because that would leave poor old Brad Pitt without work. When characters are rooted in reality it essentially ruins the fantasy. No woman in her right mind should ever expect a man (on their first date) to take her to a movie called Eat, Pray, Love. I suppose Julia can get one pass for the movie Erin Brockovich because saving innocent people from the ills of poisonous drinking water is a worthwhile endeavor, but we should remember that she did it while wearing a skirt the size of an eyepatch. And even Julia should be reminded that just because you can do something doesn't mean you should.
Then my wife and I had a conversation that pleasantly surprised me. She told me she didn't believe in soul mates and asked me if I agreed. I did agree. Then she proceeded to tell me that fantasy worlds where unicorns are always pink and leading men's chest hair has always been combed and spritzed with a bit of hair gel made her angry. Of course, those were not he exact words, I embellished with a bit of prose of my own just to add a bit of humor. The truth is Chick Flicks notwithstanding we are all likely compatible with a small handful of people in this life. Matrimony is not a guarantee of happiness. The exchanging of rings is only the curtsy of a long dance we call life. The rest is just a test from God that is usually full of good times but a lot of hard work. Making a life together from scratch is no easy task, whether our deodorant has stopped working or not.
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