A girl walks into an elevator. She is brunette with a job in the city and a troubled past weighing down every relationship she enters into. A guy walks into the elevator with her. He wears flannel and builds birdhouses for a living. He has a heart of gold and a jawline sharp enough to cut open those Amazon boxes sitting on your front porch after a dark (and savings-filled) Cyber Monday. The elevator breaks. The city girl is worried, but the hometown hunk makes her feel safe.
Sound familiar?
Okay, maybe I went a little overboard with the jawline, but I just described at least ten Hallmark movies.
I know you are going to say "they are not all the same," but they do share one thing in common: false hope.
Ladies, and the poor boyfriends who have been forced to watch the entire "A Christmas Kiss" series, these movies are fun. Period. They do not give fantastic life lessons or even appropriately portray real life. How many men do you know who can make a suitable salary by running a struggling inn located in the middle of nowhere? And how many women do you know who have picture-perfect curls every second of the day, even when they wake up?
Cheesy romance movies are entertaining, don't get me wrong. And they are even better when a Christmas tree is involved. I have re-watched my share of "A Christmas Prince" just as much as the next girl, but I know at the end of the day, it is just a fantasy.
Guys do not show up outside your favorite coffee shop just to run into you. That guy you ran into while running late for a meeting? He is not interested in you. He is just mad you stepped on his favorite pair of sneakers. There are no grand gestures or pleasant surprises coming your way from a stranger you sat next to on a crowded bus during a particularly rainy day. And as for that guy running the oh-so-charming, yet suspiciously isolated, inn, you may not want to be alone with him if you can avoid it. Yes, even if he has handsome stubble and rocks the lumberjack look, there is still a small chance he could be a serial killer.
I am sorry to break it to you, ladies, but the men in movies are not real. Maybe this seems sad, but I don't think it should be.
Think about that man with a sweet sense of humor and a troubled past. He seems perfect. He listens to you when you talk, and he has philosophical things to say about everything. It may be cute now, but when he starts to tell you every random and "profound" thought that pops into his abnormally attractive head, you are going to want to burn your ears off with that curling iron you have found yourself using every five minutes to keep your hair looking the way it does.
And I don't know about you, but I don't really want to be a female Hallmark protagonist anyways. You know how the ladies of cheesy romantic comedies always have the perfect wardrobe and a face full of makeup to complement their perfectly spiraled curls? That sounds like a lot of work... I think I will just stick to my flat ponytail and the college sweatshirt I can't remember if I washed or not.
These movies have caused thousands of women to set high expectations for the men they date, as well as caused them dissatisfaction when they enter a perfectly acceptable relationship that lacks the bells and whistles of a flashy fictional romance. Ladies, he may not dance with you in the rain, but I bet he has a good ear to listen to your stories with. And so what if the most troubling thing about his past is the time he missed a shot in a pick-up basketball game? He still has a depth to him in a way perfectly normal people do. As for his cute job as a professional birdhouse builder, you know you do not want to deal with that.
So don't lose hope when the next guy to ask you out is not a charming butterfly keeper with a small town to save. Instead, give that college kid who frequents sweatpants and wears a different baseball cap every day of the month a second chance. Listen to his story about his weird roommate. Watch some obscure Netflix show with him. Life is not a movie, but it has the potential to be so much better.
