Why I Hate Movies

I’ve gotten a lot of feedback from my first blog post. Good things, mostly. The only really "bad" things I heard from people were regarding the length of it. MY BAD. However some people had thoughtful responses. Some people I was surprised to hear from. Like people I don't talk to very often who came out of the woodworks to share their thoughts, listen to what I had to say and really give me a well crafted response. I think one of the most overwhelming responses I received was through a friend. A friend that I’ve known for a while, but not someone that knows me like the back of their hand, or someone I talk to everyday or every week, even. This friend said to me “That part in your post, about you being single for five years, I don't get that. I don’t know why you think you need a man. You don’t need man. No man will ever be good enough for you, so you keep looking for someone that’s not there. I wish you didn't feel that way."

I was blown away. I mean sure, I’ve heard that same shit from my mom. But every mother tells their single and alone daughter that at one point or another in their lifetime. So, of course I listen but I also roll my eyes and walk away thinking to myself ‘She’s so annoying, she doesn’t get it. Being alone sucks.’ But to hear that from someone, someone who doesn’t know every part of me, and who doesn't know every flaw of mine, was very kind and appreciated.

I’ve been writing two other posts, working on them here and there. But last night, I put myself through the torture of watching the movie “P.S. I Love You” for the 800th time. Why? I don’t know. I’m an idiot. But it really provoked me to write down some thoughts I have, specifically about being alone. So I decided to hold off on those other two posts about entirely different topics. For any psycho out there that’s never seen this movie, all you do is cry. It’s about a widow who receives letters from her dead husband for a whole year, while she’s grieving his loss. I mean it’s just pure torture. But I watched it anyway. I think part of me wanted to cry over nothing. I’m sure @ladies, you can relate. Did someone say PMS?????

I hate movies. My best friend/roommate for 3 years in college was the most movie-obsessed human I have ever met. I can name her top 3 favorite movies like I can recite my ABC’s. I just remember her always asking me to watch movies and go to the movies with her. I did sometimes, but more often than not I’d stick to a TV series on Netflix. I hate movies because they make you believe in things that aren’t real. The love and loss and grief and hope and care for someone had by another, that’s seen in “P.S. I Love You,” doesn’t exist. To me at least. If it does, I’ve never experienced it. Movies make you believe that those things happen every day. It’s a scam, Hollywood is a scam. They make you think up this fictional world where all this sappy crap exists, and then you watch that made-up world in action for 2 hours of your time. Then when the movie is over you’re just depressed because you have to come back to reality and face the world you live in, and the world you created for yourself. Which, unless you’re the world’s youngest billionaire Kylie Jenner, it probably isn’t as good as the one in the movie you just saw.

But every once in a while, I’ll let go and put myself right in those worlds because I don’t feel and experience them in real life. Now that many years have passed, and I’m much much much older than I was the last time I loved someone and had them as my own, it’s harder for me to picture a world where I’ll have that again, and with the right person this time.

I think that I’m so worried about being alone, not being accepted and not being treated the way I should be treated, that for the past 5 and a half years I’ve just made self-deprecating jokes about my shitty love life and bad luck with men and completely pushed the possibility out of my head that those good things will ever happen. But hey, you never know. Good things come to those that wait.

In “P.S. I Love You,” Hilary Swank plays the main character, the widow, named Holly. Holly’s mother had the last letter that her husband wrote to her. When Holly’s mother gave her that final letter, she said “Now, alone or not, you got to walk ahead. A thing to remember is, if we’re all alone, then we’re all together in that too.”

I’m not alone. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, I have incredible friends and a caring family. I’m not miserably alone. I don’t cry in my bed every night, relax people I’m fine. I’m independent, happy, and confident, and living a very blessed life. But sometimes, movies like that, they just get ya... right in the feels. And this one did.

But hey, being single just means I don’t have anyone to stop me when I ask for extra feta cheese on my Greek salad. And that, is a very good thing.