Men Acting as Women II

I love this time of year and all the cheesy Hallmark movies. I joke with my neighbor that I'm awaiting my own Hallmark movie moment. After all, you only have to be slightly above-average looking, only one of you has to have the come-to-Jesus moment, your whole life is figured out within an hour, and you can do a shitty job acting through your life and it's no big deal. 

However, after my last experience I have been watching these movies (remember my bad taste in tv??) with a new eye. I watched one and the heroine gets her dream residency while she is twittering away as a doctor in a remote Alaskan town. Don't ask me how she got there, I have no idea. But she had a great date with a guy and then coffee where she finds out she gets the residency and needs to leave immediately. 

He instantly reacts and gets very testy that she would choose her life's goal and dream when they had such a fun date. Really?? Get duckin' serious, Dude. This turned me off, maybe because it resonates with the last batch of men I've gone out with that develop deeper-than-natural feelings from the get-go. 

It's not just me, I'm seeing a lot of this going around. Three of my friends are, or recently dated men like this too. Successful, age-appropriate, should-know-better men that for some reason announce their intentions to pursue you like a demon within the first week. Eek! 

Let's take one of my friends. I realized after watching more and more of these Hallmark Christmas movies that we DO have the Hallmark movie moment. This is my storyline for her (this is based on her most recent relationship):  

A Very Robbie Christmas 

 AnnMarie is unhappy at her job. She finds a dream job in California where she's always wanted to live and has worked her whole life for this opportunity and she applies for the job. Cut to cold day at bus stop where the bus broke down in a land called Bumpkinville. A cute guy appears and compliments her on her glasses. They bump into each other again (must be fate!!) and he asks her out. His name is Robbie. They have a lovely time and she starts to think it might be fun to have a partner in crim—life and her career isn’t her only goal. The next day she gets a call saying that the Cali job is hers- guaranteed to promote her after one year. It's a dream job in the place she desires to live above all others!! It’s a bullet offer but AnnMarie, naturally, accepts. 

The next day she tells Robbie, somewhat regretful but also hoping for a little human support, that she landed her dream job. He barks at her that he should have known better and how stupid he was to fall for a girl that could never appreciate Bumpkinville anyway. And just when he was having REAL FEELINGS for her (after just one date, who knew?). For some reason there is background music that seems to fully support him and simultaneously damns her in the process.  

The next day AnnMarie leaves for the airport and, alas! A tree is felled on the only road going out of town (who wouldn’t love this crap ass town?!). Instead of calling to say she’ll be reporting a day or two late for the new wonder job in Cali she sees the whole thing as fate that she must remain there forever in this now “charming” crap ass town. She and Robbie embrace as he is deliriously happy that he got his way. Wow, AnnMarie, what a great gesture! She marries him only to find that wow- he actually isn’t very supportive of her goals but she's wed and bred so that must mean Happily Ever After, right? 

A great bit of this story is true, except she didn't choose the guy after two dates. Because that isn't normal, that's Hollywood. But she did have some guy profess his "deep" feelings for her after one date and press her to feel the same, press her to make sacrifices, play mind games when he didn't get his way. At the end she's still questioning herself, wondering if she was too hard on him. 

Okay, this is already a ridiculously long post but the point is that authentic feelings don't just happen overnight. Even if you feel that s/he is "the one" wouldn't you want to nurture that realtionship until you both feel the same? It seems that there is no shortage of men these days that think they can pour these sentiments and we'll just lap them up. I'm sorry but if after date one you feel we are going to be together forever, maybe just keep that to yourself. Try something milder like, "Hey, I had a really great time. I'd like to see you again." Food for thought.