Angry Old Married Lady Makes All the Brides Cry and the Bouquets Wilt

ugh. romance. emiright? 

i am such a stick in the mud about grand frivolous romantic gestures. it's a huge turn-off to me in movies and shows that they focus so much on the insipid meet-cutes and then, even worse, the drama-filled dating that follows. they show so little of fun long-term relationships. new relationships are a necessary hassle to get to the good stuff later, right? (i know! i know! says the old married lady).

i've long been bitching about how few great long-term/married couples are portrayed in film and on TV. couples who deal with life's dramas together, but rarely make their own drama between them. not because they're boring....on the contrary, they have the MOST fun. they also don't make each other crazy. (i'm thinking like marshall and lily in HIMYM, jamie and paul buckman in 'mad about you,' maybe eric and tami taylor 'friday night lights'? who else? the conners.  i think all three marriages on 'modern family' are pretty good). 

to me, that's where all the meat of a relationship is. not when you're just getting to know each other, but when you've been best friends, lovers, business partners, and maybe co-parents for a bunch of years. those conversations are so much juicier! the jokes are so much funnier. the sex is so much more satisfying. the fights are so much more valuable and at the same time, less meaningful.

it's the same with friendships. i enjoy my BFFFFF's more than my new friends just because i'm less anxious around them. i KNOW they like me, i trust my heart with them. we have shared experiences we can reference without a bunch of work. same with any relationship. time should make it better. 

anyway. that's the rom-com i want to watch. 

i have marriage and weddings on the brain because my sister and her fella are getting married this summer and i get to be the matron of honor. they're a very cool couple who make each other more awesome versions of themselves and really have fun together, but are also very real and can get the heart of issues and know each other, get each other, and don't rely on drama. they are relaxed, real, and easy. 

so i'm down with their wedding, because they are awesome and very focused on their relationship. but in general, the drama and romantical impermanence of the WEDDING thing is bleh to me. it's the people who seem to be all about the wedding and none about the marriage who have me all in frets. i feel like the intent to celebrate a tried and true love by throwing a big party makes a lot of sense. but the perfect, surprising, dramatic and climactic expectations of typical wedding seasons are unecessarily stressful and sentimental. 

i am genuinely concerned for the integrity of my occular muscles with all the rolling they've been doing lately over the "i said yes!" or "she said yes!" wedding crap that's bobbing to the top of the internet.

it's driving me crazy. i just don't get it. was there a doubt that you would? did you have multiple offers? did he shock you with this question? had you not discussed it and negotiated your terms? you SAY YES to a boss offering you a job, not a partner merging businesses with yours. you know what i mean? it seems, at best, schlocky and at worse, like a lop-sided agreement. 

i do think that tv and movies have impact and influence in how we view normal human behavior and expectations of relationships. maybe if we saw more strong, fun, resilient couples and fewer first kisses or weddings as pivotal plot points (they should just be part of a couple's story! not the end goal! not the obstacle), maybe, i don't know. maybe i'd gag less. i don't want to be presumptive and say it'll effect the divorce rate or anything silly like that. but a strong, dynamic couple who faces the world together should be sold as exciting and sexy and not seen as beige infinite.

robb renewed our family zoo membership because he saw it and knew it needed to get done and figured he could check it off my list. he also refilled the humidifier tub without my asking. 

these are incredible romantic things that have me all in swoon of him right now because it shows he's thinking about me. not looking for credit or glory or anything, just trying to make my life a teeny bit easier and trying to accomplish shared goals. 

but i guess you can't put that in a movie because there's no orchestra or waterfall or crying. 

ok. end rant.