If I see one more “oops we bumped into each other in a coffee shop” moment, I am suing the entire film industry for damages: emotional, spiritual, and academic.
Rom-coms were supposed to be comfort food. Soft blankets for the soul. A warm hot chocolate in cinematic form. How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days, Notting Hill, 10 Things I Hate About You, even When Harry Met Sally, these were the films that taught us love could be funny, chaotic, but ultimately worth it. They gave us butterflies, they gave us delusion, they gave us reason to believe that maybe, just maybe, love is one dramatic speech away.
Fast forward to 2025. Netflix is out here factory-producing rom-coms like they’re making Maggi. Same plot, different fonts. “Clumsy but quirky girl bumps into a man in a turtleneck at a bookstore.” Cue montage. Cue soft indie soundtrack. Cue me throwing popcorn at the screen because babes… I’ve seen this 47 times already.
What used to feel like serotonin now feels like psychological torture. This is meet-cute fatigue: the bone-deep exhaustion that comes from watching another “accidental coffee spill” marketed as destiny. And trust me, if I have to sit through one more airport chase where no one removes their belt at security, I will lose it.
Unrealistic expectations are the enemy of inner peace.
Rom-coms are professional liars. They sell us the fantasy that love arrives in soft lighting, with violins playing in the background, and everyone’s pores blurred into oblivion. Reality? Love is messy. It’s late-night “wyd?” texts, it’s missed calls, it’s someone eating your fries without asking. It’s someone still saying “sorry, was busy” when you know they were.
But thanks to years of cinematic gaslighting, we start thinking: “If love doesn’t look like a perfectly framed montage, is it even real?” And suddenly, your brain is comparing your class crush to Patrick Dempsey, when in reality he’s just a man in a wrinkled shirt who still hasn’t bought a lab coat.
This gap between reel and real? That’s where the rage festers. Because my “rain kiss” moment isn’t cinematic. It’s me outside AB1, drenched, holding soggy notes, coughing like an extra in a tuberculosis awareness ad. Not romance. Just pneumonia. Forget the kiss (that’s nowhere to be found), someone just get me a damn umbrella.
The psychology of meet-cute fatigue is sneakier than you think.
It’s not just annoyance. It’s brain science. Psychologists call it script conditioning… basically, your mind absorbs rom-com patterns like gospel. Girl drops books, boy helps, they lock eyes = love. Rain = kiss. Airport = destiny.
So when real life doesn’t follow those scripts, your brain short-circuits. You’re standing in the library corridor, hoping your crush bumps into you. Instead? You bump another shelf. That’s not sparks. That’s humiliation. And your crush probably hasn’t even looked at the library ever since he joined college.
Over time, the fatigue builds. It’s not that you don’t believe in love, you’re just exhausted by the performance of it. Love doesn’t need montages. Sometimes it’s quiet. Sometimes it’s ugly. Sometimes it’s two people laughing at how bad the sev tamatar is in the mess. But rom-coms don’t show that. So you’re left with the constant dissonance between what you were promised and what you got.
The rage is gendered, because of course it is.
Here’s the bit that makes me feral: women in rom-coms always bleed for the plot. Men just breeze.
Think about it: the overachiever heroine learns to “let loose.” The boss babe sacrifices her promotion for love. The cynical girl is forced into vulnerability. Basically, women have to reshape their entire identity for the sake of romance.
And the men? They just… show up. They smile once. They wear a better shirt. They buy one bouquet of flowers. And suddenly, they’re the hero. Meanwhile, the girl gave up her lifelong dream for this man who once remembered her Starbucks order. It’s not romance, it’s unpaid emotional labour wrapped in glitter paper.
The rage isn’t just about repetition. It’s about watching women collapse themselves while men are applauded for existing with a jawline. Exhausting. Infuriating. Textbook gender imbalance disguised as comedy.
Rom-Com Bingo: play along at home.
If you’re still not convinced of the fatigue, here’s your interactive game:
✅ The airport chase where security just… doesn’t exist.
✅ The dramatic rain kiss where no one catches pneumonia.
✅ The quirky best friend who has no life outside comic relief.
✅ The fake-dating trope that turns real by act three.
✅ The makeover montage where “removing glasses” = transformation.
✅ The random scene in a bookstore or coffee shop.
If you checked 3 or more, congrats, you’ve officially been diagnosed with meet-cute fatigue. Side effects include eye rolls, popcorn-throwing, and screaming “THIS WOULD NEVER HAPPEN” at your laptop.
Why we rage but still watch.
Here’s the masochism of it: we’re tired, but we still show up. Every. Single. Time. Netflix drops a new rom-com and suddenly we’re there, eyes wide, waiting for enemies-to-lovers to kiss. We want the fluff. We want the delusion. We want hope, even when it hurts.
Rom-com rage isn’t apathy. It’s proof of how much we still care. Because no matter how much we rant, part of us still hopes that one day, maybe, the trope will come true. That someone will bump into us at the mess, drop their plate, and it’ll be cinematic instead of dal tadka pouring on you.
Hope is exhausting. But god, it’s addictive.
So yes, I’m tired. Tired of soggy rain kisses that I will never have. Tired of rent-free Manhattan apartments when getting a good house in Mumbai at 25 is a dream. Tired of dialogue so bad it sounds like ChatGPT’s third cousin wrote it. Rom-com rage is real. But maybe it’s also proof that deep down, we’re still soft. We’re still yearning. We’re still stupid enough to believe. Because, at the end of the day, we are indeed stupid enough to believe that everything will happen to us all at once… when barely anything does.
Until then, I’ll be in Old Mess, heckling every bad trope and side-eyeing every man in a turtleneck.
Want more chaotic chronicles, caffeine-fuelled confessions, and campus survival cheat codes? Slide into Her Campus at MUJ. And if you hear someone screaming at a film during a rain-kiss scene… BYE, that’s NOT Niamat Dhillon at HCMUJ.