I once got into a heated argument in a restaurant in Elat, Israel on whether or not chick flicks were as damaging to relationships as porn. My position: yes! In fact, it is worse because chick flicks are more subtle...Welcome to part 3 of my series on Marry Him! an article written by Lori Gottlieb in the magazine The Atlantic.
In my formative years, romance was John Cusack and Ione Skye in Say Anything.
What fascinates me is she uses the same person as my favorite writer Chuck Klosterman in Sex, Drugs & Cocoa Puffs
If Cusack and I were competing for the same woman, I could easily accept losing. However, I don't really feel like John and I were "competing" for the girl I'm referring to, inasmuch as her relationship to Cusack was confined to watching him as a two-dimensional projection pretending to be characters who don't actually exist.
Page 2, Sex, Drugs & Cocoa Puffs
As a single, 20-something man who has a bit of an ego and no problem asking women out, I completely understand what he is saying. In the marketplace of "dating," I can't compete with Say Anything. I don't compare with Matthew McConaughey in How To Lose A Guy in 10 Days. And if they were real people, really "competing" for the same woman, like Chuck, I wouldn't mind losing to them. But they aren't real! And you know full well the real John and Matt would make awful boyfriends and worse husbands.
And before you respond, "ohh I like those movies, but I don't expect that in real life," all I have to say is bull crap! Chuck is correct again when he writes:
[men and women] will both measure our relationship against the prospect of fake love...The main problem with mass media is that it makes it impossible to fall in love with any acumen of normalcy.
Page 3-4, Sex, Drugs, & Cocoa Puffs
A couple of months ago or so I had a conversation at Starbucks with one of my "Stolen" girls. She is smart, funny, attractive, successful, ambitious; simply put: she is amazing. But she said something that floored me. She signed up for internet dating. What!? She even made the statement that, modesty aside, she thought her and [a couple of her friends] were real "catches" but they never get pursued. They don't get asked out.
And while, yes, I will beat up on men for becoming wusses (especially within the church), I have to say they have some justification in being wusses given that the perceived expectation is so high. Which brings me back to Gottlieb's comment on settling...
Based on my observations, in fact, settling will probably make you happier in the long run, since many of those who marry with great expectations become more disillusioned with each passing year.
I have to give her the point for today (if you are keeping track, settling is up on not-settling 2 to 1). I sometimes think I would be happier abandoning my expectations because I have come to realize these expectations are built on fictionist fantasies. It isn't that I don't want to find true love, it just seems that true love is fundamentally different than what we have seen. And just as I don't expect my wife to be Pamela Anderson, I shouldn't have to be John Cusack.







Aside from correcting you grammer, this is what you get for watching crap movies; crap relationship advice from Hollywood. I pray to God that you don't start modeling your relational thoughts after "Superbad".
I’ve been listening to the show via podcast for a few weeks. On the 2/24 show Allen was talking about how much you love Jamba Juice and kept going when y’all were in Phoenix and to check out your blog. I spent a lot of time at Jamba Juices in Phoenix because the wife of my youth loves them as well; like you I take mine without boost.
I could not agree more with your title and comments. Just as porn is damaging to men (and women) who watch it; unrealistic romantic fantasies damage women (and some men) in their ability to deal with real relationships. Romance novels, Cosmo and chick flicks are the Playboy of women. Sex and the City isn’t helping either, unless the goal is to turn women into cranky, middle-aged persons of loose morals.
Incidentally, I can’t stand most Cusack movies from the 80’s except The Sure Thing and I especially hate Say Anything. He’s better now that he’s older, Gross Point Blank was hilarious.
Fr. Longenecker has a post of his Gargoyle Code series (like C.S. Lewis’ Screwtape Letters) on topic.
http://gkupsidedown.blogspot.com/2007/03/gargoyle-code-10.html
Here, here! The sad thing is that they don't even realize it; hence the reason I think it is worse than porn.
Sorry about that. I am working on a whole new blogging engine I built from the ground up. In a couple of weeks you will be allowed to embed links.
Just the other day I was wondering to myself why it is that bookstores won't put "Barely Legal" out on the shelves but they seem to have no problem with acres and acres of women's porn. D'ya know there is such a genre as the Christian Romance novel? I can't think of anything I could possibly like less than a Christian Romance novel.
Spoken like a true Christian. Criticize something you have never seen. It's like Allen saying that Brokeback Mountain is "immoral" and in the same breath admitting he has never seen it.
By the way, what is wrong with porn anyway? Sure it is not real, but no entertainment is really real, not even (or especially) reality TV. Enjoy it for what it is, and let women enjoy chick flicks/romance novels, and let's treat it like a problem only when it becomes one, in either case. Just like drinking alcohol is not in itself a problem, but alcoholism is.