Oh Jolene

Why, in rom-coms, is there always a significant other? Rom-coms are all about the cutesy meeting, the anticipation, the build-up, the complications. Naturaliamant. Love is messy, even in the ideal, glossy, Hollywood life. So why throw in, say, a girlfriend to the male the main character likes? Is that really necessary? Isn't making that connection, overcoming the fear of rejection, revolting against your own biases and judgments about another person enough without tossing in a soon-to-be-ex? It's natural for an audience to want the main female and the main male to get together. Yet, throwing in a significant other thus demands that the audience cheer on that other person's unhappiness.

I'm thinking of in particular, "You've Got Mail," a rom-com I have a soft spot for. Yet this film throws in not one significant other (to the point of living together, no less!) but two! What, the downfall of independent business and demonizing of capitalism wasn't enough of a romantic roadblock? Additionally, for cynics in the audience (*raises hand*), the question is raised, "If the previous relationship died because one partner was having an emotional affair online, what chance does the next have?" This film glorifies emotional cheating! Is it because we cannot bare the idea that anyone looking for a relationship online might be single, and thus in some way unstable or insufficient? After all, if they're in a relationship already, it proves they are worth having, right?

Perhaps I just overly identify with the spurred girlfriend. After all, if you aren't the cutesy, bubbly blonde in the rom-com, then who are you? Possibly the short-haired, intelligent-but-stuffy brunette girlfriend (I'm looking at you, "You've Got Mail" and "Legally Blonde.")

Then again, this is a rom-com. And I am known to over think. I just needed something to get my mind off the fact that I just spent $300+ for a chest x-ray as a test for TB, when a small $5 needle prick would have sufficed. But no, Japan has to be difficult, and demand an x-ray for anyone teaching children.

A yearly chest x-ray.

The doctor looked at me as if I was crazy when I requested one. "A chest x-ray on a healthy 22 year old with no history of smoking or disease?" he asked. I said," I'm going to Japan," and he replied," Oh, that totally makes sense then."