Harry and Sally

I am a relationship disaster area. I can take something beautiful, and wreck it like the Hesperus. My problem is very simple, really, and can be summed up in three words. I expect narrative.

In our world, we are bombarded with love stories. On the TV, in movies, in books, even adverts suggest a story (think of the Chanel advert with Nicole Kidman). So, I have come to expect narrative in all my relationships. I find myself delivering lines, setting up dramatic situations, and thinking that I know how it's all going to end because I've seen how it all SHOULD end a hundred times over.

For instance, we all know that when two people have an unconfortable encounter, then become best friends, then have a couple of big fights, then have a very comfortable encounter, they should end up together. Right? Throw in little scenes that demonstrate how well they know each other, how much they have in common, how they depend on each other, and it's a certainty. Isn't it?

Sadly, no it isn't. That big dramatic kissing scene in Trafalgar Square where in a movie 'The End' would roll out across the screen as the leads fade out into 'happy ever after' is not, in actual fact, the end. What happens is she calls him two days later, and finds out that he only kissed her because he felt sad and lonely about how the girl he actually likes doesn't like him. She tells him never to call her again, then calls a week later to forgive him because she misses him as her friend, but has decided she definitely doesn't want anything more to happen. He doesn't answer the phone. Then she blogs about it.