Rom Coms Ruined Me
Rom coms have ruined me, and yet I still continue to watch them and call myself a hopeless romantic, when in reality I am a secluded hermit afraid of social interactions.
I am one of the suckers who has lived vicariously through the lives of many rom com leads. This has caused me to create a skewed version of reality and very high standards. At the age of 29, I have yet to participate in a serious romantic relationship. My friends tell me there is nothing wrong with me and that I am a great person but I can’t help but be frustrated that my life isn’t like a movie. Every time I download a dating app and set up my profile it just all seems surface level, which I suppose is the point. I fill out the profile, answer the ‘fun’ questions and somehow it doesn’t feel like the real me. When I start interacting with men and having conversations with them, the conversations are usually interesting enough to keep me motivated, but when it comes to actually meeting them in person something always stops me. I chicken out.
For some, dating apps have been extremely successful and people have found their person. But for someone who has fallen down the rabbit hole of rom coms, they are torture devices. The painful dull conversations you begin with and then having to continue the conversation so that you seem interesting, it’s too much work.
I like to first meet people in person. I feel that it takes the edge off of interacting rather than going from screen to in person. But with the pandemic and stay at home orders and then morphing into the highest level of hermit, going out in public to meet people isn’t ideal either.
I know what I want in a partner is simple enough — respect, unconditional love, encouragement, and peace, but rom coms have somehow made these simplicities unachievable in the real world. For many years I have formed my internal world to be rather unrealistic. I also think about the worst case scenario and somehow end up believing it. Yes, I know there is trauma there to work through and eventually I will, but I feel like my time is running out.
There is also a problem of the societal standards placed on women. I am turing 30 next year and I feel like my time has run out to find someone. I am a fuller figured woman and I have a lot of insecurities that I am still working through. But society has drawn me as the outcast and quite frankily so have rom coms. There is no ‘me’ represented in these movies and if there is a bigger woman, she is usually the sidekick not the main character.
So not only have rom coms ruined my idea of what a relationship should be but it has also portrayed people with bigger bodies as unlovable and unworthy of a real relationship that doesn’t revolve around fetishes and feeling sorry for us. I have done a lot of work on my body image and eating disorder, and I know that I am in a better place than I was two years ago, but there is still this fear, that no matter how many pictures I put up on my dating profile, the male will still be in shock or disgusted when he sees me in person. Again, I recognize that this is a personal narrative and I am working through it.
But bigger woman do have a harder time in the dating game and we don’t need people feeling sorry for us. Like what do you feel sorry about, that I have a different genetic pattern, that my external environment plays a role in my appearance and that epigenetics is a thing? The only person you should feel sorry for is yourself for being so wrapped up in societal norms of what a woman should look like. Do you really believe there is a one size fits all physical appearance? What a boring world it would be if we all looked the same and behaved the same way.
Anyway, I sort of went on a rant there. But my point is there are a lot of factors why putting oneself out there into the dating world is hard and triggering. You are supposed to trust that the person you are meeting won’t judge you and will give you a chance to get to know who you are as a person, as a human being. Rom coms have made me want the cute meet up in the coffee shop or the bookstore, but my social anxiety prohibits me from having those serendipitous moments.
I don’t think that I will ever stop watching rom coms because let’s just face it they are pure genius when it comes to escaping reality. But I definitely need to give myself some reality checks and start psyching myself into dating full time, because my dream of my soul mate landing on my doorstep is most likely not going to happen.
