I just recently started rewatching one of my favorite sitcoms, "How I Met Your Mother." I've only seen it all the way through one time, about two years ago now, and I've forgotten how hopeful and optimistic it is.
When I was 17, "How I Met Your Mother" was how I wanted the world to be. I've never been much of an optimist, but this show gave me hope that the world isn't as depressing as I thought it was.
I'm also a closet romantic too, so the sappiness of the story always felt perfect.
There's a little problem with this show, though. It's all a big lie. I just finished season one, I'm only a few episodes into season two, but it's painfully obvious how ridiculous this story is at times.
For instance (Spoiler alert? You've had almost 5 years since it's ended to watch season one..), when Ted attempts to win Robin over one last time with a blue string quartet and hundreds of roses in her apartment.
Those kinds of big, crazy romantic gestures sound great in theory, but realistically they're just crazy. There's a scene where Robin mentions how crazy it is to do something like that, but it's immediately rejected by another character.
This is when she realizes that she actually does want to be with Ted. Sweet, right? No. Sure, the whole "grand gesture" thing is a nice idea, but if I were Robin, I would've said the same thing she originally did before she changed her mind.
There was every reason in the world not to try dating Ted and they both knew that. He should've respected the fact that they wanted different things and it wasn't ultimately going to work out.
This is a common theme in a lot of pop culture - men wooing women who aren't into them. For instance, in the "Indiana Jones" movies, "Star Wars" with Han Solo and Princess Leia. This wasn't obvious to me until I watched a YouTube video about it. The link is below.
Predatory Romance in Harrison Ford Movies
I found a few more articles about this common trope while I was researching - one on The Atlantic and another that they linked to on TVTropes.org. Both are linked below as well.
Romantic Comedies: When Stalking Has a Happy Ending
Either way, this trope is really overdone, annoying and frankly a little scary. It's teaching young kids that grand gestures and "romantic stalking" are acceptable in real life romance and relationships. Better yet, I've even suffered through countless instances where a guy thought a certain gesture was romantic and would win me over even though I had already told him I wasn't interested.
How is this still considered okay?!
I didn't mind seeing it in "How I Met Your Mother" when I didn't notice it because I didn't know any better, but now it's been driving me insane while rewatching the show.
It's crazy to think that this was such a common trope to begin with, but more people need to be aware of the consequences this has on societal views of relationships and romance.
