Somebody stop me...

I’m on a romantic comedy binge. Okay, so it’s only two RomCom’s I’ve watched tonight but, considering the fact that I lack the “chick flick” gene, two is a binge. Also considering the fact that my DVD collection contains more action and violence than the average woman’s – my favs being “Fight Club”, “Snatch,” and “Kill Bill” (prefer Volume 2) – my RomCom choices are usually odd and eccentric – “Benny and Joon”, “High Fidelity” and “Gross Pointe Blank.” I only have a couple of “traditional” RomCom’s so I’ve had to rely on Time Warner Cable to fill in the blanks.

I guess what I’m looking for is answers to my current, chronic, stupid situation. I know nothing about dating. I know nothing about starting a relationship. I know nothing about dealing with the opposite sex. And somehow I figure I’ll glean something from “Notting Hill” and “My Best Friend’s Wedding.” Maybe buried deep in the light, fluffy scripts are the secrets to how to successfully navigate the waters that I am currently dog-paddling in.

Or maybe I just want to lose myself in the fantasy that one can fall in love with their best friend and actually have it turn into something (okay, I know that doesn’t happen in Best Friend’s Wedding but…) or that you can meet someone that is a total stranger and just feel that connection and have him show up somewhere unexpected and say something so wonderfully charming and darling that you totally lose your heart.

Maybe if I study how these women behave in these things, it’ll give me a clue as to how to proceed with the stupid men in my life. Should I toss out the “I’m just a girl, standing in front of a boy” speech, or chase down my best friend in a stolen bread truck?

Maybe RomCom’s are the reason I am unsuccessful. The women in these always fall immediately in love and intensely in love. Very few of them are casual, approach the relationship as anything but something special and marvelous and amazing. And I’ve come to the conclusion lately that I approach most relationships that way, whether it’s a friendship or something more. I am not capable of casual and I think maybe that scares the shit out of men. Someone who I cared about deeply who left my life unexpectedly once said something about my being “too much” sometimes and I never really understood what he meant. I think I do now. I think that I love intensely and deeply, whether it’s my friends or more. I expect that kind of devotion in return, in many of my relationships, and I think most people are willing to give that back, to a point.

But it’s that “point” that I think I don’t get. If I care about you, I CARE about you. I don’t know how to do that in small letters, only capital ones. I am not the type of just take things casually and let them breeze by. I am passionate and intense and fierce and I began to think lately that maybe I need to change that.

Then I came to the conclusion that that’s bullshit. This is me. If I’m “too much,” it’s because you can’t handle all of the affection and devotion that I am capable of – and that’s your loss. Sometimes, it is my loss because I do lose myself by giving too much occasionally. I’m trying ot reign that in a bit.

But I am the RomCom heroine who is going to steal the bread truck and chase you down, I am the heroine who will say stupid things, if you give me enough time, I am the heroine who will bond with your roller skating dog and fall in love with someone in a coma and confess my soul to them. That is the beauty of me.

Maybe we women should be more than casual, give men a chance to experience us at full volume, instead of cheating ourselves out of that passion, out of that commitment, out of that depth of feeling. Sure, it hurts like hell when it’s not returned or when it finally ends, as it usually must. But I’d rather hurt like hell and know that I gave someone everything I had than only whimper and know that I protected myself so much that they didn’t get the full force of me. Even in friendships, even in the friendship I lost, I don’t regret giving him what I did because I know I did it because he was that important to me, important enough for me to unleash the whole force of me upon him. And I guess that was too much for him to handle. But I wouldn’t have done it any other way.

So for tonight, I’ll observe Julia Roberts and adore the intensity that is her character and see if I can channel some of that into this current situation. And, maybe in the end, I’ll get the cute guy or the best friend or whoever I am supposed to end up with, and he will appreciate and accept the intensity that is me.