As a longtime lover of many romantic comedies and sappy love stories, these movies and television shows once ruined my expectations of how I assumed my love life was supposed to go. After 19 years of thinking that Prince Charming would rescue me from a world of disloyalty and failed talking stages, I am here to report that happily ever after is not as easy as depicted. My many years of watching these overly romanticized movies has allotted me to make an unrealistic expectation of what I expect my late teenage years to go like, but also has created an exact idea of what my future relationships will look like.
During my time in high school, I binge-watched the television show Sex and the City and decided to align myself with the character, Carrie Bradshaw. Carrie Bradshaw is a single writer who lives in New York with an extensive closet full of name brand items. Her life always seemed so glamorous: she worked from home and went to brunch with her girlfriends every weekend. Even though the age difference between Carrie and I was about 20 years, I still believed that my high school crushes would ask me to come stay with them in Paris, and all in the same week the actual love of my life would profess his love for me. Even though this could probably happen in the future, these expectations were way too high for a high school student.
Even though the movie 10 Things I Hate About You is set in high school, the movie still gives these unrealistic expectations for high school students that simply just do not happen. The movie’s protagonists Patrick and Kat start off as mortal enemies, and somehow in the span of a few weeks they become overwhelmingly in love with each other. In one scene of the movie, Patrick dances in front of the entire school just to catch Kat’s attention. Maybe I went to the wrong high school, but I just do not see that happening in real life.
Before I realized my life was not a romantic cinematic masterpiece, I honestly believed that I would find the love of my life in high school. Even though this might happen for a few people, this was not the case for me. I spent a lot of time in my high school career yearning for my perfect person that I missed out on an essential time to focus on my own wellbeing. I began to get so invested in a love life that I began to believe I would not be happy without a love interest. With my obsession with Hollywood love stories, I forced myself to watch these silly movies and point out everything that I was doing wrong. As I tried to pinpoint what exactly I could be doing better, I learned what I wanted in my own future relationships.
Even though romantic movies gave me an unrealistic standard for myself, it taught me never to settle. These movies might have conveyed unrealistic ideas, but they still demonstrated that people will do anything for someone they truly love. The love of your life might not find you on the streets of Paris, but they will make sure you always feel loved. Romantic movies taught me that my expectations are never too high, I just have to wait on the right person to meet them.
After many years of binge-watching romantic movies, I realized they were not for me to picture myself as the protagonist but to merely enjoy the plot of the story. Romantic movies taught me that the right love was worth waiting for. Carrie Bradshaw from Sex and the City taught me that even though it might take a while to find love in a significant other, my friends would always be right beside me after every terrible endeavor. Kat from 10 Things I Hate About You taught me to not give everyone my time because everyone does not deserve it
As I’ve grown older, I began to better decipher the meaning of each romantic movie, I loved when I was younger. Even though I no longer see myself in these characters, I still love watching these romantic classics. These unrealistic expectations helped me develop what I want out of a relationship and helped me realize that I do not need a Hollywood plotline to be in love.