This page was last updated on Tuesday, 15 February, 2005

 

 

A lot of people watch too many romance movies. They've watched so many that what they're forced to accept as love in real life doesn't compare with the fabulous romance they're used to on the big screen. Certain individuals watch so many fantastic movies that they are actually surprised that some rich, charming, handsome delight doesn't just fall into their life. It's pathetic really. Naive. A real bad way to go through life.

I'm worse than those people.

I've watched so many movies that far away places, extreme riches and exotic accents aren't romantic at all to me. I've watched enough movies to realize that the point of love and romance is that you don't need artificial adornments to a relationship to make it worth having. Usually the point is that you don't have to leave town and buy love. You just stay where you are and give it. I guess not every love story is like that, but my favorites are. My favorites are the ones where the main characters don't wind up in the castle. They wind up in the cottage. They aren't from different countries. They're friends. They may have grown up together.

For most of my life, these stupid stories have guided my love life. I had all these naive ideas from all my favorite romantic movies that looks and money weren't as important as sincerity and devotion. I had this weird notion that in real life, best friends really did fall in love.

I took this silly mindset to college with me. While there, I managed to fall for this silly, nice, funny, beautiful girl named Charlotte Petersen. When I fell, she kept her feet on the ground. She didn't want me back. Charlotte was also, unfortunately, my best friend. While her rejection of my advances was horrible enough, her friendship was just really just a constant tease of what I wanted us to be. Although my feelings for her were obvious and quite public, somehow we maintained a strange friendship based on my devotion to her. I chronicled this in our provoparty days here.

Yeah, I was pretty stupid. Movies ruined me. Things don't just work out. Friends are just convenient. Lovers are a different matter entirely.

So, like any Duckie, I trudged on. While she cycled through a series of gentleman suitors, I lost interest in girls. Like a fool, I was just too devoted to what wasn't happening. Although we were still best friends, I eventually wanted her as an enemy. The friendship was too painful and I never really felt the need to keep my enemies closer than my friends. My move to Salt Lake City helped me out. With Charlotte so far away, I figured I could just quietly, solitarily, live out the rest of my life.

I'm still stupid. The real world and I have never really gotten along. I never could figure things out, but as of Friday, the 21st of January, I don't have to.

The weirdest thing in the world happened. The weirdest. Hard. After years of chipping away at her, the girl finally gave in. Serious. After I move away and lose half my hair and go unemployed and lose weight and go almost entirely emotionally numb, Charlotte finally accepts me. Suddenly, kissing me is something she enjoys doing. I can't explain it. I guess she could explain it. She has, sort of, to me. I have a hard time listening because my mind has turned from a system of cogs into a single merry-go-round of delight. I defined my existence by absence for so long that it's actually strange to define it by fulfilment. Now life plays like a good dream. Things don't quite feel real, and there's a lingering feeling of waking up to drudgery at any time.

I'm not going to call this a happy ending. It's really more of a beginning that started well. Who knows if there will even be an ending? All I know is that I'm still stupid. I still don't trust movies. Sometimes we just get really really lucky. If you ever catch me giving love-life advice, go ahead and punch me in the face. I'm just lucky. I don't actually know anything. And even if the ending isn't happy, the story is still pretty darn swell.

(26jan05)