Blogflog - Real life is not a Romantic Comedy, but it is Romantic

[blogfloggery.livejournal.com]

Link: Real life is not a Romantic Comedy, but it is Romantic
Disclaimer: This blog entry is verbatim, as originally posted on LKH's blog. Copyright belongs to Ma Petite Enterprises.

During breakfast I watched the last bit of “You’ve Got Mail,” with Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan. I’ve never seen the movie, but my husband, Jon, had. He wanted me to see the end of it, so I did. It was charming and romantic, and made me think I might want to watch the movie from the beginning, but it also made me think of questions.

Has your real life romance ever been influenced by a romantic comedy film? If so, which one/s? Do you think that any romantic film reflects anything close to real life? If so, which one/s?

The above was what I posted on my FaceBook. I got a lot of responses. People shared some truly wonderful, real life romantic stories. They suggested other films that they thought were more realistic. I admit that the only films that people said was more realistic, or said something real to them, that I’ve seen were, “When Harry met Sally” and “Love, Actually,” but others oft mentioned were, “P.S. I love you,”; “The Notebook,” and “He’s Not that into You.” But most responses said that romantic movies weren’t real enough to impact real life, or worse yet, they felt they set up such high expectations that it spoiled us for real live romances. Several felt that women were especially negatively impacted so that no real man could live up to the fictional version. Some shared that they had found the love/s of their lives and lost them far too early. Everyone was so generous with their sharing that I felt I had to answer my own questions.

First, no romantic film has ever unduly influenced me. Honestly, I’m not a big fan of romances in any form, never have been. I’d rather read mysteries, horror, fantasy, science fiction, nonfiction especially history and biology. I’m more an action adventure movie person, but there are a few movies that have romantic meanings for me. “Lake Placid” is the first movie that I saw with other friends that my future husband, Jon, was part of the group. The first movie just the two of us saw as friends was, “The Mummy” with Brendan Fraser. One reader on my FB page sited “The Mummy” as the kind of relationship they thought was hot and full of chemistry, no arguments from me. The movie, “The Mexican” with Brad Pitt and Julia Roberts was on every TV in every hotel the year we had our honeymoon and first toured together, so we watched it a lot, in pieces, but we still have affection for it, even though it is a disaster as far as romances go, and no way should the main characters have survived, let alone lived happily-ever-after. Jon and I share two favorite romcoms, “Nottinghill,” and “The Holiday”. (Both movies were mentioned in answers on FB, but not a lot.) Those two movies are on our short list of, I’ve had a hard day and I just want to smile for awhile. I’ll add, “Bell, Book, and Candle,” as one of my favs, but I think it’s not the romance angle, but that it’s the only movie I know that is about publishing, the holidays, writing research, magic, and has Jimmy Stewart, and Kim Novak in it. Do I think any of the movies we like are a good blueprint for real romance? No, they’re fiction. Real life is messier and far less logical. Fiction must hold together and make sense, real life doesn’t have to do any of that.

How did Jon and I meet? He’d loaned out a copy of Guilty Pleasures and the friend hadn’t returned it. He mentioned it at a bookstore where the clerk knew me, and mentioned that I was going to be at a local science fiction convention. He could get the new copy signed. (The clerk would eventually be the writer, Rhett MacPherson, and a member of my writing group, The Alternate Historians). Jon drove himself to the convention, and got me to sign my book. We also would talk for two hours in the hallway with the Green Room just feet away. We talked about literature, science fiction, horror, movies, science, history, philosophy, music, and found in each other minds quick enough and esoteric enough to keep up with each other. It set up a pattern of how we would interact for years to come. We never had trouble finding things to talk about. No, it wasn’t love at first sight. First, we know he was seventeen when we met, because he’d just gotten his driver’s license. I was twenty-nine, married, and one of his new favorite writers. I would learn years later that he had trouble talking to girls, but he never had trouble talking to me, because he didn’t see me as a “girl”. The age difference, my martial status, successful writer, all of it meant he didn’t see me as datable so he didn’t have to be nervous around me, which meant I got to see Jon at his best, and would spend years puzzling over why he wasn’t more successful at dating girls near his own age. I would give him dating advice, or assure him that yes, that girl did like him, for years. I was his friend, I wanted him to be happy. Neither of us saw the other as a potential date, let alone as a potential spouse. In fact, if you’d told either of us back then that eight years later we’d be dating, nine years later we’d be engaged to be married, we wouldn’t have believed you. That we’d be celebrating twelve years as a married couple – we would have laughed in your face. When we met I thought of Jon as this young kid, then my friend, but far too young to date. We were just friends for eight years, and even then it took us a long time to realize we were more. Most of our mutual friends figured it out before we did.

For those keeping track, I was married to my first husband for sixteen years of traditional monogamous marriage. It just didn’t work for me and I vowed never to marry again. Six months later, marrying Jon sounded like a good idea. How and why this change? Yes, love, lust, and that great friendship base, but honestly Deity intervention. I’m not really kidding, Jon and I can’t remember who proposed and who accepted, because we turned each other down multiple times. We both had issues with the age difference, and both had scars from previous relationships, and those pesky personal issues, so thank you, God and Goddess, for helping us work through it all to get to the happy place we are now. Plus therapy, because Deity helps us & then expects us to do our work to make it all work out.

Rereading the above I realized, though it doesn’t sound like a romantic comedy it might reinforce the ideal of finding that one true love if your life & everything magically works out perfectly. Yes, I talked about Jon & I doing individual therapy above, but I just want to be clear that isn’t the be all, end all of our story.

Jon & I just celebrated our third anniversary of dating our girlfriend, Genevieve. I am also seeing the other man in her life, Spike. We are polyamorous, which means to love more, & have been most of our marriage. So, for us it’s not about finding that one perfect love, but being open to the possibility of finding that special poly group to love, whether it be a threesome, a foursome, or a moresome.

Comments

[deadsong.livejournal.com]

jeza_red called that one.

[jeza-red.livejournal.com]

And now I wish I was mistaken>___>

Ugggh she really does live in some strange parallel dimension where people care about her shit, doesn't she?

[snarky-imp.livejournal.com]

...somehow I never knew he was 17 when they first got to know one another.

This is making me eyeball Cyn even more than before and now I need a particularly strong drink.

[plastraa.livejournal.com]

Because of my own childhood experiences that whole thing read to me like her grooming him...which creeped me the fork out!

(I might be projecting though. bad chills.)

[dreamstrifer.livejournal.com]

Things I don't care about: LKH's love life

Things I wasted my time reading about: LHK's love life.

I am A+ at time management, apparently.

[feygan.livejournal.com]

I heard that in the voice of Hannibal.

[lliira (from livejournal.com)]

Honestly, I’m not a big fan of romances in any form, never have been.

This is obvious. There's zero romance in her novels, just magical roofies and all of a sudden it's TWU WUV. Then a horrible excuse for sex, and then the bickering! My god the bickering. Of course, everything else in her novels is total crap too and mostly focused on bickering.

She married Jon six months after she divorced her first husband? Uh...

Polyamorous does not mean to love more. She cannot be right about anything. It's a gift.

[dreamstrifer.livejournal.com]

My brother's ex married her second husband literally days after they were divorced. But they'd been separated for a year and a half and it was just down to paperwork. I'm wondering if was something like that with LKH?

[collectively.livejournal.com]

Ugh, I'm afraid she's going to give polyamorous people a bad name with shit like that. We're not all condescending about our lifestyle, I swear. :-/

[dagonista.livejournal.com]

But, gosh, Anita and Nathaniel are totally not based off anyone in real life!

[jessica collett (from livejournal.com)]

LKH's facebook posts are like looking into the Arc of the Covenant. Thanks LKH, I didn't need my face that much anyway.

[rodentfanatic.livejournal.com]

GET AWAY FROM MY LAKE PLACID, LKH

I LOVE MY GOOFY ‘ATTACK OF THE GIANT WHATEVER’ SYFY CHANNEL FILMS AND YOU WILL NOT RUIN THEM WITH YOUR TOUCH

Deity intervention, eh? If there are gods (and not like small personal gods, as there are in some religions, but I mean big ol' GODS) I really hope they have better things to do than this

[lliira (from livejournal.com)]

The "deity intervention" stuff is a lot like what happens in the Anita books. LKH didn't choose to be with Jon, the supernatural made her do it!

[cygnusrex.livejournal.com]

I LOVE MY GOOFY ‘ATTACK OF THE GIANT WHATEVER’ SYFY CHANNEL FILMS AND YOU WILL NOT RUIN THEM WITH YOUR TOUCH

I dunno RF, 'Attack of the Colossal Wererat' sounds like it'd be a great ending to the series.

"I'm afraid you've misunderstood, Anita darling," he said. The calm smile on his face didn't meet his eyes, though they shined with a colour that wasn't blue or green, but a mix of the two that reminded me of an ever-shifting ocean like the one he'd crossed to meet me. They matched his tie, but he was dressed in a particularly bland suit that didn't bear mentioning, even though it was cut to show off the almost feminine curves his body had.

I knew he wanted a chance at becoming one of my sweeties in order to redeem himself, as if I was the only one in the world with the power to wipe his sins away. I was, of course, but he was one of those bad guys that was far beyond even my help, and so I'd have to put him down for his own good. But before I could interrupt, the sky darkened further like God knew I'd have to take the shot and send this curly-haired man down to wherever God knew he should be sent.

"You're not looking for a weresnake."

"I know you're not," I said. He was an animator, so he moved slower than I did. I had all the advantages, and he was caught like a cornered-

"Nor is Monty," he chuckled. "But, I think he's found you instead."

He looked up before stepping into an alcove. I thought it was a trick for a moment, but the shadow on the ground grew in size too rapidly for it to be a coincidence. Above me was a giant, too large to be any species I knew, even though I knew them all because of my biology degree. A massive, hideous claw, descended from the brown, furry sky above and I could only stop and stare as the fleshy mass came towards me at a rate that not even I could move. Speaking of fleshy masses, my sweeties could feel my fear and screamed at me over all of our mental links to get out of the way and I shot upwards, thinking that whatever it was could probably be killed, especially by me, and-

SPLAT

[kessie.livejournal.com]

I... really didn't need to know that.

The only writers whose personal life I know so much about are friends of mine. We support each other through the good and the hard. And they don't post that kind of stuff on a public blog!

[mocha-latta.livejournal.com]

I debated if I should post this or not, but the part of me that loves trashy, juicy gossip is elbowing its way forward.
FIRST I'm going to say that if you take the story at face value, it is rather sweet (ignoring the superiority dripping from the words) but the timing of all of this is making me squint at the screen.
I know nothing (except for all the hints she drops) about her first marriage, when, and why it ended, but when you state that you and your Friend-Nothing-But-A-Friend! And you get engaged 6 months after your divorce AFTER apparently several previous proposals, my brows shoot high into the air.

PURE SPECULATION TIME:
I wonder if Mr. Evil-Because-Mongamous and her ended the relationship because she wanted to also be with Jon, and he wasn't comfortable with that.

[lliira (from livejournal.com)]

I would say I "wonder" too, but I've moved beyond that stage.

[suzycat.livejournal.com]

Yes.

[ravens-shadow.livejournal.com]

Okay, first of all? " Do I think any of the movies we like are a good blueprint for real romance? No, they’re fiction. Real life is messier and far less logical. Fiction must hold together and make sense, real life doesn’t have to do any of that." Holy crapola, she said something sensible. I was actually talking to some friends about this earlier. (We shall shake our heads resignedly at the fact she doesn't necessarily follow this, but at least she knows enough to say it.)

Second of all? What's all this "we" business? "We know he was seventeen when we met, because he’d just gotten his driver’s license." He should know, it was his age! And she doesn't need proof from his license, she could just say 'he was 17.'

The rest of it? It just feels like she had the urge to share how she and Jon met, which is all well and good, but then she felt she needed a reason, a lesson to impart with the story, a moral or "LKH knows best." She could have just left it at, "Saw the end of this movie. It brought up all these questions, people shared their stories, so here's mine." At the end, say it isn't the end of the story, but no need to go into the therapy stuff (seems like something she could have kept private, or relegated to a different sort of post), and personally, I am done with her discussion of polyamory.

[desert-vixen.livejournal.com]

This. It's not enough to share the memory, but we have to have an Anita Blake After-School Special moment.

[okami-no-yume.livejournal.com]

Fiction must hold together and make sense, real life doesn’t have to do any of that.

Wow. None of her fiction has made a damn lick of sense in YEARS. I literally snorted and rolled my eyes.


And oh God, I can only imagine her therapist. I imagine they just nod and smile, and then have a nice, stiff drink after she leaves. Heaven knows I would.

Also, the idea that she could have been grooming Jon....it's not outside the realm of possibility. I took a shower less than two hours ago, but these thoughts are making my skin crawl with the squick. Bleeeergh.....

[ronni-l.livejournal.com]

"Jon & I just celebrated our third anniversary of dating our girlfriend, Genevieve. I am also seeing the other man in her life, Spike"
So...
SHE boinks dates her husband (I believe his name is Jon).
SHE boinks dates their girlfriend, Genevieve, with this Jon guy (her husband, IIRC).
SHE boinks dates Gen's boyfriend, Spike.
Apparently her husband, Jon, and their girlfriend's boyfriend, Spike, do not boink date each other.

Remember when it appeared that she was basing the Anitaverse on her life? Doesn't it seem as though she's now trying really, really hard to convince us that she's now basing her life on Anita's life instead?

[desert-vixen.livejournal.com]

Remember when it appeared that she was basing the Anitaverse on her life? Doesn't it seem as though she's now trying really, really hard to convince us that she's now basing her life on Anita's life instead?

I would get on this train, yes.

[duamuteffe.livejournal.com]

So. I don't usually comment on the personal posts, but this one kind of pissed me off. This is what I get from this:
"I don't like romance as a genre, to the point where I have to be told about famous films that are commonly known to most people. But here's half a dozen films I like that I find romantic that I assume other people don't since they're not in the genre. Also the two romantic comedies I do like just happen to be the ones mentioned least on my facebook post. Have you noticed how unusual I am yet?"
"My marriage is perfect and wonderful, so much so that I have to post a disclaimer to keep the average reader from taking it as a template for True Love. But since other people often have wonderful marriages, let me tell you about how my additional romantic/sexual relationships are also perfect because I assume other people don't have those. Have you noticed how unusual I am yet?"

As a Pagan, I find her nonsense about Deity *making* her do something pretty insulting. Their relationship with us is more like that between parents and adult children; They give advice and may make suggestions but They don't make you do things :/ What the hell would free will be worth then? Does this woman ever make a decision and stand by it, or is her life a series of events pawned off to other sources?

[a-sporking-rat.livejournal.com]

Upon rereading it, I can't help but wonder what she's trying to hint at with all this stuff about how Jon didn't do well with younger women...is that the intervention of the Deity too, to steer him towards LKH?

Also I bet her dating advice to him was TERRIBLE

[cekhmet.livejournal.com]

She's 'dating' someone named ... Spike? Oh, okay Buffy.

[suzycat.livejournal.com]

I KNOW RITE?