I'm not
really sure under what category this article really falls under. I've just
tried to put into the words,the ramblings of my mind after watching two movies.
Two slightly bittersweet romantic comedies - 'He's Just Not That Into You' and '500 Days of Summer’, which have a slight common thread running
between them.
He's Just
Not That Into You' has nine characters and deals with their romantic troubles.
I’m going to skip all of them except for the central character Gigi. You may
ask why. I guess she's the only one who captured my interest.Gigi has a long
history of mis-interpreting signals from the men she dates. Any casual act by
one of her love interests always sends her into fits of obsessing over if this means that they're interested in her. She meets Alex, a canny bar-manager, who is able to point out all her past
mistakes of mis-reading signals. He tells her that if a guy is really
interested in a woman, he would make no excuses and would definitely pursue her.
It’s when he isn't, that he offers lame excuses. She starts following his advice,
but also ends up falling for him. When he learns of her interest, he tells her
that he is not interested in her, and that she has ended up misreading his
motives once again.
I guess
this movie just set me off to think a bit. I guess I'm addressing this question
to everybody. How many times have you done this? Misunderstood some casual
expression of interest by your crush/love interest and ended up obsessing over it.
Will he ever call? Because she smiled at me, does this mean she interested in
me? And the best part is, we end up discussing this with our friends, who
confuse us even further. They assure us that our assumptions are true, and
throw in a few stories where some similar couple got together. Rarely, would
your friends(or in many cases. ourselves) be willing to point out the bald
truth that 'He Just Not That Into You’. Isn’t it just as important to admit to
yourself when your love interest is not interested in you, as it is to get the
inkling that somebody is falling for you?
'500 Days
of Summer' declares that it's a 'boy meets girl story’. But it adds a warning
'That this is no love story'. Tom, a writer in a greeting card company falls
heavily for his beautiful and quirky co-worker Summer. They start getting romantically involved
with each other, despite Summer warning Tom that she does not want a serious
relationship and does not believe in love. Summer splits up with Tom eventually.
This sends Tom in a sinking depression and he is desperate to get her back. He
meets Summer some days later at a friend's wedding party and she invites him to
a party at her house. Tom has a lot of expectations from this invite, as he
thinks the romance is getting re-kindled. At Summer's party however, he
discovers that Summer is engaged to be married. He runs out of the party and
enters into a deep depression. He eventually recovers, and meets Summer a few
weeks later. She explain that she had unexpectedly ended up falling in love with somebody. And that she
actually now believed in love. She had just been too unsure of her feelings
when she had been with him, to return his love. Tom accepts this, and moves on
with his life.
There
comes a point in many relationships, where things may start to cool off .One
person might not be into the relationship, while the other could be. And
sometimes relationships just end up dying a natural death, without any big
event to cause the breakup. Beautiful while they last, but with an expiry date nevertheless.
In today's lingo, this translates to a facebook relationship status of 'It's
complicated'.
So why do
you think people still want to fall in love? Well, I think because it's an
amazing feeling. Nothing else can really compare to it. And, that's perfectly OK in my book. Because making a fool of yourself over love, is just one of the
paths to self-discovery. If you don't let yourself ever take risks, what kind
of a life would you ever have? Safe and boring.
That will definitely stop appealing to you at some time in your life. So what
am I really rambling about. Well. ..Go and fall in love ...experience it's magic.
It’s alright to get your heart broken. You can pick yourself up and heal
again.If he/she's not into you? Well…just try again :)
P.S: In
case you wanted to know. Gigi and Alex get together finally. Alex realizes he
loves her, after she rejects him. Dumb ending in my opinion.
