Love: Reel Vs Real

“I have to leave you because I do not want to hurt you. But promise me something... promise me that you will not do anything reckless” Edward says to Bella. He gazes at her longingly, with suppressed angst... angst at having to leave the only woman he ever loved in his 109 years of damned existence. Bella looks at him, confused, scared and lost.

Those were the exact same words that my now ex-boyfriend had said to me three years ago. He had the same solemn look in his eyes. And I had looked at him just as Bella did at Edward.

There was, however, once subtle difference between what happened on screen between Bella and Edward, and what happened in my life. Bella’s lover wanted to leave her in order to protect her from his vampire family. Mine wanted to leave me because he had another woman in his life and he wished to go to her.

So how similar are real-life and reel-life loves?

I, like a lot of other girls in my generation, have treated myself to a fair share of Hollywood flicks when growing up. Being a woman, I was probably influenced by the romance genre more than any other. Fairytale endings, happily-ever-afters appealed to me and I secretly hoped that my life would turn out to be like one of them. At one point, I was convinced that that was how true love is supposed to be.

Perhaps that is why when my now ex-boyfriend had entered my life three and a half years ago and told me that I was his perfect match, I was thrilled. He seemed to walk straight out of a blockbuster Hollywood romantic flick. He had the charm, the looks and he said all the right lines. He would appear at my door in the dead of the night with a bunch of red roses. He would write poems about me and praise me beyond my imagination. He had literally swept me off my feet. It was all fantastical, just like in the movies.

That was probably why I was so devastated when he told me, after six blissful months of being in love, that he had to leave me. I had seen it happen in a lot of movies. The hero has to leave his woman because of circumstances beyond his control. He longs for her, aches for her and waits for destiny to take over, for there isn’t much he can do at this point other than breaking the heart of the woman he loves more than himself.

Unfortunately, it was a couple of years before my consciousness kicked in and I realised the truth. And the truth was that my dream guy was in reality a pathological liar, an egocentric maniac and a womaniser. It was right before my eyes all the while and I couldn’t see it.

I couldn’t see it because I had idealised life and love. I had fed my subconscious with so many unrealistic and fantastical scenarios from all the romantic flicks I had watched throughout my adolescence and early youth that I wasn’t willing to accept that reality was a lot different and harder to face.

I know that I cannot blame movies for my failure. The purpose of movies is entertainment and entertainment is what they must be limited to.

Yet it is undeniable that movies had altered the way I perceived reality. I had read somewhere that movies present a blurred picture of reality and consequently, cause us to have false or high expectations in life. As a result of these increased expectations, we often end up being disappointed with our rather regular and seemingly mundane lives.

The closest to Mr. Perfect in your life will just be a regular guy who can give you nothing more than his unfaltering loyalty and commitment. You know that he will never catch you by surprise by getting down on one knee and asking you to marry him. He will never come running through airport security check just as you are about to board a plane to the US, only to say that he loves you and wishes to spend the rest of his life with you.

No, all these things happen in the movies, not in real life.

But we secretly hope that someday they do. This happens to most of us, though a lot of us do not realise it or admit it. Consciously or subconsciously, we are all influenced by the movies we watch. This is more so the case with young people in their teens and twenties, when they have no real responsibilities to tie them down and stop their minds from wandering at every opportunity.

So, should movies be closer to real life? May be, maybe not. Some would say, what is the point in going to the movies if it is exactly like the drone of your everyday life? It is true that most of us watch movies because we want to escape from reality and be surrounded by fantasy, at least for a while. But what we must realise is that the fantasy stops once the end credits start rolling.