Blue Valentine: The Untold Story

Don't worry no spoilers, I merely want to use a line from the movie. It is when Ryan Gosling's character is speaking to his co-workers, he says, "I think men are more romantic than women. I mean think about it. Men resist settling down, they do not want to get married until they find that girl that they know they cannot live without. Women they aren't like that. They will take a decent man with a good job, who they know will stick around. They talk about waiting their whole lives for Prince Charming, but they all end up just picking the guy with a good job."

Take a minute because I know that blew you away like it did me. It's absolutely true. Men marry the woman they absolutely love, the one they cannot see being without. Women on the other had take every relationship, and think if the man meets certain criteria and the relationship goes on long enough that they should get married. Where is the romance in that? Now I am not writing this to defend commitment-phobic men at all; there are some men who look at a wedding ring the way vampires look at the Crucifix. But for the large part there are men who only plan to get married once (trust me divorces are a sticky unfortunate beast) and so when they do get married they want it to be with someone they can't be without not someone who will do. This leads me into another topic, related to this: men have feelings and get their hearts broken.

I think, and as usual you may disagree with me, our society's media pop and news does a fantastic job of constantly painting the woman as the victim. Obviously, often times women are the victim, men are dogs, men are cheaters, yada yada yada. Bottom line is, despite what Tyler Perry tells you, women can be as as doggish (won't use the female word), trifling, and sneaky as men. In fact, when a man is hurt by a woman it may be arguably worse than in the inverse situation. I say this because most men are so hesitant to settle down, to create a family until they know this is the one, so if they find that girl and she was with him for reasons other than love, then in the long run the man is more devastated.

A good example of this is my own life. I was "dating" someone, who basically up and disappeared on me. When I tried to be the bigger person and tell them how I felt...well let's just say I wish I never put myself out there because their response only left me more wounded. Now I am lucky enough to have a few good male friends (SN: will likely do a later post on "Bromances" look forward to that) who were able to read the response with objective eyes and sympathize with me. You know basically told me: "Fuck em. You better than they will ever be anyways. Get over that shit. Fuck em!" It was probably more eloquent than that...or less...I forget but the bottom line is they helped me through it. Why? Cause I needed that push because despite popular belief men have feelings outside their pants dammit! Granted what's in the pants has more persuasive feelings, but all jokes aside you can't believe the hype men and women need to treat each other with respect. Now, like I said this does not describe the case for every guy, nor is it a critique of the movie simply that one dialogue within the movie, and the thoughts it brought about in my mind.