Q: I can never understand guys. I thought I did with my last boyfriend, but it turns out that didn’t work out, either. What’s wrong with me?
-Cynical in StoneA: It’s not you.
And it’s not him or any of the other guys you’ve dated, either.
So whose fault is it, you ask?
Believe it or not, I think I have the answer.
It’s “their” fault. You know, “they” – the people who decide that you have to compulsorily attend elementary school and make you drive on the right side of the road and tell you that you should eat six to 11 servings of grain every day.
They also happen to be the people that are ruining our lives (for reasons other than making all of us fat from eating too many carbohydrates).
I recently read an essay by Chuck Klosterman, a senior writer at Spin, titled “This Is Emo.” In said essay, he indicts such pop culture icons as John Cusack for providing a view of love that is so utterly ridiculous and unattainable that it has ruined the way we all view relationships.
We come to expect the storybook romance depicted in our favorite music, movies and books and, when we don’t get it, we think that life has dealt us the short end of the stick.
The problem is, he articulates, that the very fact that we can even conceive of such a fantastical romance makes it impossible for us to ever be happy with what will inevitably be a very boring relationship by the standards we have set in our minds.
Depressing, huh?
It doesn’t have to be. You are just going to have to learn to separate fact from fiction, a difficult thing to do when the line between media and real life seems to be blurring a little bit more with every passing day.
I think we should all start by realizing that the perfect romances in the movies only look perfect because they happen in the span of about two hours. What they don’t show is when the happy couple disagrees over how much they can spend on dinner (no one in the movies ever has a realistic budget, or, for that matter, any budget at all).
What really gets me is how people in the movies always look perfect in the mornings and smile at each other lovingly from under crisp, white sheets. Frankly (and I suspect I am speaking for a lot of people), I would rather not speak to anyone until I have had my shower.
I also believe we could get rid of a lot of the (as Chuck Klosterman calls it) “fake love” problem by debunking the myth about “soulmates.” According to a poll at www.cosmopoltian.com, approximately 64 percent of the nearly 6,000 voters (mostly young women in their 20s and 30s) believe in soulmates. This idea that there is only one person out there in the whole word for you seems like yet another manifestation of the unattainable expectations placed on modern romance.
What if my soulmate lived in another country or spoke a different language? I’d be screwed, wouldn’t I?
In my very humble, 20-year-old opinion, I think that the person you end up marrying will not be your knight in shining armor, or your savior, or the tall, dark and handsome man who carries you silently away in his arms. I would like to think that my “soulmate” will be more like my best friend that I also get to kiss.
With your next relationship, try not to expect your boyfriend to be any more than completely human, faults and all.
Of course you have the right to expect common human decency and maybe even a step or two above that, but don’t try to make him be something he will never be. Realize that he is probably placing some of these same expectations on you and try to be understanding.
You might want to buy him a copy of Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs (the book from whence the essay I cited came) and tell him to read the first chapter.
If you only take one thing away from your experience, let it be this: don’t lower your expectations, but don’t expect so much that you only disappoint yourself.
Questions? Comments? Send your e-mails to The Whole Enchilada at et_enchilada@yahoo.com.

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