thirty-one.

"Girls are taught a lot of stuff growing up: If a boy punches you, he likes you; never try to trim your own bangs; and someday you will meet a wonderful guy and get your very own happy ending. Every movie we see, every story we're told implores us to wait for it: the third act twist, the unexpected declaration of love, the exception to the rule. But sometimes we're so focused on finding out happy ending we don't learn how to read the signs: how to tell the ones who want us from the ones who don't, the ones who will stay and the ones who will leave. And maybe a happy ending doesn't include a guy. Maybe its you, on your own, picking up the pieces and starting over; freeing yourself up for something better in the future. Maybe the happy ending is just moving on. Or maybe the happy ending is this: knowing after all the unreturned phone calls and broken-hearts, through the blunders and misread signals, through all the pain and embarrassment...you never give up hope."

I watched He's Just Not That Into You last night. I couldn't decide how I felt about it. It was an interesting movie to watch with a bunch of Christian women since couples cheat, settle for living together because they don't believe in marriage and claim if she's not sleeping with you after a month..she never will. It was also just interesting to watch with other women because it's primarily a movie about women. We can relate to the girl who read the signs wrong and desperately searched for a chance to randomly run into him. Many of us squealed and aww-ed when the guy who had done everything wrong did one thing right. We sighed when the girls fell for the cheesy pick-up lines and hated the uncommitted men. A lot of the movie was interesting to me because I was interested in how everyone else would react to the movie.

When the movie ends, some people have found love, others have fallen out of love, and others have abandoned love. Its a twist on a happy hollywood ending, because some characters are far from happy when the movie ends. When the credits started rolling, someone said "well, what did we learn from this movie?" I don't know what I learned. It does point out that many women overanalyze things, which I am certainly guilty of. But I mostly just learn that people are more infatuated by the thought of love than love itself. The word love is thrown out so easily when it seems to me it's just lust.

I can't say I disliked the movie, but I don't know if I really liked it either. I'd be curious to watch it again with a group of guys.