Anti-Climacus

QUOTE FOR THE DAY: From Pajiba:

Lookit: If you’re actually looking for relationship advice, let me offer you some by way of example. In a one year period in the early aughts, I was — for the first time since 9th grade — not in a lengthy relationship with anyone. That year, I spent five nights a week in a bar; I made out with a lot of women I never spoke to again; and I woke up several times in the Boston Commons. My life was cram full of drama, and it was the most miserable twelve months of my life. Then I met my wife; we went to a bar, where we spent six hours talking, drinking, and smoking ourselves hoarse. At the end of the night, I walked her to the subway and said I wasn’t interested in a mandated telephone call waiting period. I asked her to call the next day. She did, and we moved in together six weeks later. Now, I pick up my kid’s food castoffs every night, I put away the dishes, and try to find a few hours each week to watch “30 Rock” with my wife and read some alphabet book with my son. It is a dull motherfucking existence. I’ve never been so happy in all my goddamn life.

The point is: The best relationship advice is that there is no good relationship advice, and you sure as hell don’t need a self-help book or a movie to tell you that. It’s all bullshit. In fact, the only person in all of He’s Just Not That Into You that acquits himself well is Ben Affleck. In the film, he’s been living with Jennifer Aniston for seven years, unmarried and completely content with their marital tedium until she demands a proposal. There’s never any doubt in their tiny subplot that Affleck is in love with her, and he knows exactly what he wants: A return to their domestic tedium.

That’s why I think that Say Anything is the perfect romantic comedy: There is never any doubt as to the affection Lloyd Dobbler and Diane Court have for one another. They don’t have to overcome moments of weakness, commitment issues, or insipid miscommunications. They have to overcome circumstances. But as soon as Lloyd helps Diane over the broken glass, there’s not a question that they love each other. There’s no gamesmanship. No waiting by the phone. No big speech asking for forgiveness after a preposterous misstep. There’s just finding a way to be together. And that’s what’s wrong with most romantic comedies and, He’s Just Not That Into You, in particular: They complicate the courtship. But if the “that into you” is reciprocal, the courtship shouldn’t be particularly problematic. The rub is cutting through life to make it all work.