REEL TRUTH with Serena Whitney

Mr. Big Vs. Alex Forrest

Sometimes I think about the dating game and I want to forfeit due to mental incapacitation. Seriously. Make me ride the small yellow bus to the special Olympic dating game where checking off the yes or the no box to the question ‘Will you go out with me?’ is an acceptable means of finding out the status of a “relationship.”  Now it seems if I even dare to change my FaceBook relationship status, an emerging romance can have the longevity of Dustin Diamond’s career and just stop dead in its tracks.  With the growing infamy of the f*ck buddy and baby mama phenomenon, it’s no wonder why so many women (myself included I’m afraid) tip toe around the issue of the status of their relationships with their lovers like a journalist forced to interview Leighton Meester without mentioning her newly discovered and explicit foot fetish.  It made me wonder as to how we let the dating world lead us into a labyrinth full of false hopes and dead ends.  How do women get so obsessed over labels and why are men  instantly repelled by them? 

Like an ignorant bible thumper would say on the subject of violence—I blame it on the movies.  Not all movies mind you, just two movies with two of the most influential characters ever to be seen  onscreen—the emotionally unavailable Mr. Big and the knife-wielding Alex Forrest. 

In 1987, Glenn Close chilled audiences with her convincing performance as the psychopathic mistress in Fatal Attraction.  Unfortunately, it was so convincing that it seemed to have made every man think that any sign of a woman displaying her emotions early on in a relationship could be an early symptom of borderline personality disorder.

In 1997, women were foolishly seduced by Sex and the City’s charming yet cold, Mr. Big.  The more Mr. Big made Carrie miserable with his inability to commit, the more she was ultimately convinced he was “the one.” Then in an improbable twist, Mr. Big got married to Carrie last year on the big screen, which not only supported the delusion to women that the emotionally unattainable can eventually be attained but disciplined as well. 

Sadly, these “cautionary tales” have also proved to sabotage our real relationships of any chance of developing anything truly organic.  Being a woman, I too have fallen victim to the Mr. Big syndrome.  After being dumped by my “Mr. Big” for the first time, his character flaws that I couldn’t stand started to become unique “quirks” I couldn’t possibly live without.

Many women have also proven to make the same mistakes and also convince themselves their ex lover’s hostility was actually a sign of passion, their alcoholism suddenly turns into connoisseurship, and the many nights of light-speed sex that sent them desperately searching for double A batteries afterwards, also somewhat changed into blissful lovemaking that not even Harlequin novels could re-enact in words.  

Men, on the other hand have grown to fear the Alex Forrest archetype to the point where the word ‘emotional’ has somehow over the course of time become synonymous with the word ‘insane.’  Suddenly, a woman’s reasonable need for affection comes off as being too clingy and they find themselves running away before being tied down to a woman that seems desperately in need of a strait jacket.

With women brainwashed into romanticizing their dumpers and men brainwashed into fleeing from women that have a higher emotional range than a Buffy-Bot, it’s no wonder why so many of us are struggling with our love lives. 

Unfortunately because of society’s now obsessive need to regurgitate every single thought or detail of our private lives in a single “tweet,” it’s also become way too easy to fall victim into becoming the stereotypes we loathe and fear ourselves.

After all, today we can flirt, booty call and initiate and/or break-up relationships safely from the confines of our keyboards.  A woman could battle inner turmoil and risk a stable relationship with a man all because of an effortless “poke” on FaceBook from an ex looking for an instant gratifying ego boost.  A man could be harassed simply by a scorned ex girlfriend using teary-eyed emoticons as forms of emotional blackmail in numerous text messages. 

It seems lately that we have let recent movies and television shows such as Obsessed, Homecoming and Sex and the City skew our judgement of the opposite sex and our  lack of basic  face to face interactions only further exaggerate or minimize the flaws of our love interests.  

The only way the romantically-challenged can ever escape these stereotypes is to stop letting entertainment glamorize their love lives into being something they’re not.  Refrain from de-coding wall posts displayed on FaceBook newsfeeds and just simply use some good old common sense for a change.

Don’t be afraid to call a spade a spade. Don’t delude yourself into thinking your relationship is as strong as your orgasms.  Stop making excuses to prevent you from moving forward and letting go, and never throw away a relationship because it’s simply “inconvenient.”

Leave the melo-drama and the psycho drama in the land of fiction, because not only will it prevent you from months of pain, self-loathing and phone screening, it will also save you the humiliation of explaining the many empty wine bottles from your pity parties and the aggravation of changing your cell number every three to four months.   Life is way too short to deal with that superfluous noise.