The Chick Flick Reality

The screaming. The crying. The jumping up and down. He finally popped the question! It’s a dream come true. A happily ever after. It’s just like the movies.

Don’t get me wrong. It’s exciting. I’ve been there, and I loved every second of it. But it’s not like the movies. In fact, chick flicks have created unrealistic expectations for engagement and marriage.

Earlier this year CNN released an article entitled, “Romantic films put too much pressure on guys?” In the article, Ryan Gosling, who played the male lead in The Notebook, tells a story of a future bride who asked her fiancé if he would build a house for her like Gosling’s character did for his true love. When the fiancé replied that he didn’t know how, she called off the wedding.

While that may be a little extreme, the chick flick expectation still thrives on other levels. I know one girl who was openly disappointed that her fiancé didn’t spend a lot of money on a ring, and another who called off her wedding only to get re-engaged a couple months later, this time with a bigger rock.

Now, guys, don’t pretend this is just a girl-thing. As a two-year RA, I sat in my room listening to guys talk for hours about how much better their lives would be if they only had a girlfriend or fiancé. Why wouldn’t it be? It’s in every movie.

Take ten seconds and jot down the names of movies that end in a proposal or wedding…The Notebook, The Proposal, While You Were Sleeping, The Wedding Planner, 27 Dresses…While these movies present compelling, heartfelt love stories, they forget to mention that when the wedding is over, it’s over.

Teesha and I had a perfect wedding. Had our lives been a chick flick and the wedding the final scene, we’d have let the credits roll. But I soon discovered why romantic comedies end with the wedding.

Before landing in Cabo, we visualized the perfect chick-flick honeymoon, complete with hours of sunbathing on the beach and a personal waiter. Instead, we spent the first three days repeatedly rejecting overeager timeshare salesmen and avoiding resort employees who required a five dollar tip for bringing a glass of water. Shortly after our trip, I ended up in Urgent Care with a sun rash, and Teesha experienced an emergency wisdom tooth removal.

Although our first three weeks didn’t quite meet the chick-flick expectations of wedded bliss, we’ve since learned to set aside our unrealistic expectations and have found contentment in the actualities of marriage. But how could we have known that life-after-wedding wasn’t perfect? The movies never got that far.