Life Imitates Art

Have you ever watched a movie or TV show, perhaps a soap opera, and been extremely frustrated that the guy and the girl are oblivious to what is plain as day to the viewer? You know, like the couple that obviously loves each other but keeps messing things up and not saying what they’re really feeling and so they keep missing the point that they are meant for each other. Or the couple that to the audience clearly needs to go their separate ways but instead each one hides things from the other and they stay in misery with one another. Then there’s the couple who just seem to barely miss each other at every turn, misinterpret every move, and just generally make things too darned hard. If you aren’t familiar with such scenes then watch any of the following movies, or countless others like them:
It Happened One Night
The Philadelphia Story
An Affair to Remember
Sleepless in Seattle

Or if you’re into soaps, just watch All My Children. Erika and Jack’s relationship is an ongoing example. So was Tad and Dixie until Dixie died. . . again. Most recently, of course, there’s Zach and Kendall. There are about a million other examples from this soap and I’m sure from any other you’d care to watch.

Every time I watch one of those scenes where they are messing everything up by not saying that one thing they ought to say, or by saying the wrong thing, or by deliberately misleading the other as they deny to themselves the truth of the situation, I roll my eyes and if there’s someone else in the room say “That is so unrealistic. All they need to do is ____________, and the whole thing’s resolved, which is what would totally (because I use “totally” much too often thanks to picking up that bad habit from N) happen in real life. Nobody would be that dense and oblivious to the obvious.”

Then again, sometimes life imitates art. . .