REEL TRUTH with Serena Whitney
Love is a…Battleship?
Back in 1985, Pat Benatar taught us how ‘love was a battlefield’ in her then top-charting single that can now still be heard during Amateur Night at drag bars worldwide. Unfortunately because the music video’s key concern was showing girls how to glamorize prostitution and how to get rid of a pimp by throwing water in his face and ‘serving’ him in a poorly-choreographed dance off, the message of the song’s lyrics were misinterpreted by many. However, I personally do not think love is a battlefield, but rather just an exasperating game of Battleship.
A few nights ago, I found myself playing the age old game of relationship Battleship. Although not surrounded by peg-filled water, but rather filled seats at a movie theatre, I decided to release my ‘B2’ move: coyly twirling my cherry Twizzler in my mouth. My date strained his eyes to view the licorice in his peripheral. Hit. My ‘C2’ move simply consisted of uncrossing and re-crossing my legs and “accidently” brushing my leg against his for a split second. He re-adjusted his position in his seat and clenched his fist. Hit. Then came the coup de grace, move ‘D2’: I subtly let out a sigh that could be easily mistaken as a small moan if his mind was somewhere else other than the film and reached deep into the barely edible crumbs of popcorn at the bottom of the bag sitting in his lap. He looked over at me and ran his hand up my leg and gave me a seducing look. Hit. I sunk his submarine. This move reassured me a second date or at least the best goodnight kiss of my life.
On the other hand, this is always one of the easiest ships to sink when it comes to men. (Easiest being the patrol boat which mainly just consists of two moves: Being alone and taking off your clothes.) Although, trying to sink his “aircraft carrier” can prove to be a nearly unattainable task to achieve since unlike a regular game of Battleship, one wrong move could abruptly end the game. All I have to do is send him a text message with one too many LOL’s, tell him I love his lips, (*a phrase too closely linked to ‘I love you’) or have the rotten luck of having him read this article to miss hitting any of his ships all together. If that happens, the only thing I will be sinking from then on in is my large wooden spoon into a pint of Cookie Dough Dynamo Haagan Daz ice cream. Yup, dating can be much like playing a Russian Roulette version of Battleship and really where is the fun in that?
Relating Battleship to relationships is a fair analogy considering all the games people play in order to catch or maintain relationships. Many movies have addressed these common issues of strategically timed hair-flipping and phone calls and have unfortunately added more rules to our love lives further skewing our judgements even further.
According to The Ugly Truth, a woman has to dress like a slut, wear Jessica Simpson’s line of hair extensions and stick phallic symbols in her mouth (*refer back to move ‘B2’ above) to build a strong relationship, when in reality all that would come out of that is a glorified booty call.
Hitch taught us that any man can get the girl of his dreams if his gestures are grand enough. Unfortunately in real-life, all a guy has to do to miss hitting a woman’s battleship is to recommend her to watch the show Glee on Wednesday nights in a far too enthusiastic manner.
In Two Can Play That Game, “so-called’ relationship expert Shante Smith (played by Vivica A. Fox) takes her female viewers on a journey into her ten day plan on how to repair a broken relationship and have the man behave as well. Sadly, if any poor soul followed her plan down to every explicit detail, they would find it hard getting back into their ex’s Twitter account, let alone his heart.
Lastly, Kate Hudson showed us how to lose a guy in 10 days. Funny considering all it really takes is for a girl to ask a guy, ‘what he is thinking?’ twice in less than half an hour to make men jet.
It’s as if we have adopted these ludicrous rules quicker than an obsessive compulsive person can adopt a new superstition and that’s really depressing if you ask me. It makes it nearly impossible to enjoy the thrills of dating someone new when the longevity of the thrills could end faster than picking the wrong choice in a Choose Your Own Adventure Book. (Except you can’t pretend you didn’t see the words ‘The End’ and go back to where you previously left off.)
Dating shouldn’t be this complicated. We shouldn’t have to always strive for someone who appears to be slightly out of reach. We should be able to tell a person we like them and not have to play hard to get to make them like us more. It’s not organic and it’s not our real selves. Considering all the violence and disasters in the world today which constantly reminds us how short life really is, I find it amazing how we still have the time to wait three days to call somebody we like.
Break the pattern! DO hate the player and ignore the game. Don’t let movies, television or Milton Bradley for that matter make you think game-playing is a compulsory task in order to build a successful relationship. Like Beatrix Kiddo in Kill Bill had once so eloquently put it, “Tricks are for kids.”
P.S. Pat Benatar, if you throw a glass of water in a pimp’s face and dance around him, you have a serious death wish. I’m just saying.
