It's called the meet-cute. That moment in a romantic movie when a man and woman first meet and you instantly know there's something special between the two. It's the perfect balance between location and timing and generally has the perfect soundtrack to match. It's a true Hollywood moment, and while many women (including myself) acknowledge that it's all just a movie, there's a tiny part of me that truly believes moments like that exist...without the David Attenborough voice over, of course. The term 'meet-cute' was first coined by world-renowned film critic, Roger Ebert, but was popularised in the film,
The Holiday, when the character Arthur Abbott (a Hollywood screenwriter) described a meet-cute as:
"Say a man and a woman both need something to sleep in and both go to the same men's pajama department. The man says to the salesman, I just need bottoms, and the woman says, I just need a top. They look at each other and that's the meet-cute."
Sometimes I choose to blame Hollywood for women's unrealistic expectation of love. First you're fed fairy tales, where the prince and princess always meet in the most perfect of circumstances, where the bad guys are easily identified with their dark clothing and sinister faces and where there is always a happily ever after. I mean, who wouldn't want a tall, dark and handsome man with a genie and 3 wishes to sweep you away on a magic carpet, right?
Then you go through your teenage years, and if you grew up in the 90's like me, you would have lived vicariously through chick-flicks such as
She's All That, where the nerdy girl gets a makeover and then catches the eye of the captain of the Football team. Or
10 Things I Hate About You, in which an outcast falls in love with a misfit who despite appearing tough on the outside, is in fact a warm, caring and intriguing individual. Having these examples during your toughest and most hormonal years sets a relationship benchmark, which outside the world of movie screenwrites is virtually unattainable.
After high school, it's time to grow up and all of a sudden you're asking yourself why you haven't had your own spontaneous and steamy affair outside in the rain, like Ali and Noah in
The Notebook. Or why fate doesn't continuously place your soul mate right before your eyes like in
Serendipity? Or why you don't have a sexy foreign boyfriend like Jerry, who writes you letters and signs each one off with:
Ps. I Love You.
I suppose I should apply my theory of all movie scripts to include those remarkable tales of love, lust and romance. I choose to believe that if someone has thought about a scenario or invention, written it down and brought it to life as a feature film, then chances are it's already happened or currently exists.
So what I suppose I'm saying is there must be women out there living their own happily ever after alongside their perfect prince in a journey which can best be described as a fairy tale.
Some may call me naive, while others think I'm completely deluded, but I still believe, despite my own personal experiences of heartache and mistrust, that Hollywood moments do exist and that one day Mr. Right will walk into my life...horse and carriage and all.
