Aunt Lee's Guide to Love and Old Movies

Predictably, More on Character

2011-09-03T06:14:00.000-07:00

I know, I know that your eyes kinda glaze over when you see the first element of knowing if it’s true love – character. But answer me this – does Sandra Bullock have any happy memories of her marriage?I’m not faulting Sandra; I really think that was an extraordinary situation. My research turned up info from his old friends that showed that he was extremely talented at being whoever you wanted him to be. My researched turned up info that showed that Sandra wants to find the best in people, to be forgiving, to be kindhearted. All excellent qualities, but all qualities that can land a girl in trouble when choosing a mate.Remember we talked about the movie Pillow Talk, how:

Somehow, in Pillow Talk, nobody ever stops to wonder how Doris, who fell in love with chaste, polite, chivalrous Rex Stetson is going to be happy married to rude, selfish womanizer Brad Allen. But I want you to.

And I think what we have here in Sandra’s marriage is Pillow Talk The Lifetime Reality Series. In the Hollywood ending, we are supposed to believe that love has changed Rock, that he has become the good person he was pretending to be. In real life, this never happens – rude, selfish womanizer Jesse couldn’t keep up the pretense of being a man of high character over the long term, because that’s not who he was. And that’s why character is the first element of knowing whether it’s true love.

Flourish, Old Maid, Happiness Awaits

2010-02-09T07:01:00.000-08:00

Flourish, Old Maid, Happiness Awaits
The Valentine's Day Old Maid Movie Marathon

Alone this Valentine's Day? A bit blue about it? Here's the best way to occupy your mind: see into your fabulous future.

Sometimes the best guy comes to those who wait.

Here is a list of movies for your Valentine's Day Old Maid Movie Marathon: The Quiet Man, The African Queen, Now, Voyager, All of Me, Desk Set, The Music Man, Brigadoon, The Long, Hot Summer.

In these movies, the good girl is alone for a long stretch of time, pitied by all because of her man-less state. In these movies, the (for the most part) greatest guy ever does come along, and she gets a happy ending, happier, probably than the ending found by girls who married just to be married just because everybody else was getting married.

Statistically, really, most people do eventually get married -- do find true love. It's almost certainly your destiny. Would your lonely nights be less awful if you knew that you were to wind up with Paul Newman, John Wayne, Humphrey Bogart? Well, you almost certainly will.

Watch as many of these movies as you can find during the Valentine's Day weekend - get a group together.

And get busy and get everything done now -- all your projects -- because husbands take up a lot of time.

Is He Too Old For Me –The Manhattan Get Scale Inequity

2009-11-21T07:51:00.000-08:00

Is He Too Old For Me –The Manhattan Get Scale Inequity

I get this question a lot, and obviously there is no one right answer. Charlie Chaplin was 54 when he married 18 year old Oona, and they lived happily to his death; Lauren Bacall was 20 when she married the 45 year old Humphrey Bogart.

But what happens most often is that the younger woman is always the more mature one and that as the relationship progresses, that fact becomes more and more obvious.

If you take a step back, this makes sense – why isn’t that 27 year old guy dating women his own age? Why is he even considering that 16 year old, that 18 year old? Why would a 15 year old choose a 5 year old as a best friend rather than someone of a similar age? It's not that the 5 year old is so mature, it's that the 15 year old is creepy.

Okay, if you’re considering giving up your youth to an older guy, you owe it to yourself to spend at least 20 minutes watching these clips from the movie Manhattan – here is Woody Allen and his 17 year old girl friend – Mariel Hemingway shows up a couple minutes in, but it’s fun to watch Meryl Streep in a very early performance first:

And what happens to young girls in this situation is usually that the relationship flip-flops, and the fact that the girl is and has always been the more mature one becomes obvious to everyone, even her – which you can see in the closing scene from Manhattan.

See how she is far more mature, even at 18? See how he doesn’t want her to learn more about the world, because he knows she will completely eclipse him if she does?

Did you watch carefully? Did you have the impulse to step into the screen, bodily grab Mariel’s arm and drag her away from that creepy older guy? In all likelihood, this may well be what your friends and even parents are seeing when they see you and your older boyfriend.

But maybe that situation is too close to make the point – watch here as an older woman works to seduce a younger man:

Now do you see the creepy? There is astonishing creepy potential in the situation!

Just some things to think about.

More on The Get Scale and Get Scale Inequities.

Paranormal Activity – A Relationship Movie Review

2009-11-07T06:52:00.000-08:00

Paranormal Activity – A Relationship Movie Review

Here is what we can learn about relationships from the very interesting new low-budget horror flick, Paranormal Activity. Many spoilers.

#1: Living Together Without a Permanent Commitment is Confusing to Both Parties

Early in the movie we see Micah smirking that they are “engaged to be engaged,” and, from Katie’s mute reaction, that she finds this label irritating. As the plot progresses and problems arise, the fact that their relationship is unclear makes it difficult for the characters to deal. This would be true with any couple basically “playing house,” even when demons are not involved.

#2 Take Care When He Thinks He is Smarter Than He Really Is

Micah makes a good deal of money from day trading –and consequently he has a very high opinion of his own abilities. He is adamant that he, not an outside professional, is going to fix the problem.

However, almost every decision he makes is bad. He doesn’t even have sufficient common sense to close the bedroom door, or to sleep on the side of the bed nearest the door.

In real life, this is the kind of guy who decides that it’s not necessary to pay income tax and brings IRS demons into the picture, which is actually a much, much worse fate.

#3: It’s Hard to Be Assertive When You Don’t Know Where You Are

So Katie is in this dilemma – she’s in an ill-defined relationship with a guy who has all the financial power, but she has ambiguous legal rights. She realizes that she’s the smart one of the two, and yet she cedes a lot of the decision making power to Micah.

In a marriage, a girl can have confidence that they are working together as a couple for the same long-term goals, but in this situation Katie can’t have that confidence.
In a marriage, a girl can be more assertive about the decisions that are made that affect them both – in part, frankly, because she has legal rights – a husband can’t throw the wife penniless into the street, but a boyfriend probably can.

Katie has the worst of all worlds here – she’s put a great deal of the power over her life into the hands of a guy she’s smarter than, who doesn’t take her opinions and wishes seriously, and who could leave her homeless at any time. She yells at him, but she never really takes a firm stand.

And there are consequences – Micah thinks he’s smarter than the professionals and does the opposite of what they recommend and what Katie wants, and it all ends very badly.

Quick Note: Katie and Love’s Hinckeys

Love’s Hinckeys are the little blips on the continuing graph of a love affair -- the silent alarm system we're all equipped with to keep us from making mistakes in relationships that could ruin our lives.

Every relationship you've ever had that ended, whether it bombed or expired gracefully, you knew – and you knew in the early stages, too - how it would end, and why.

You knew because of the hinckeys – your almost involuntary reactions that are there to tell you that something just isn’t right. But you get so intent on having a great love affair that you shrug them off.

Go watch the movie again and you’ll see Katie experiencing these hinckeys – when he says the “engaged to be engaged” line we see her thinking that maybe he doesn’t plan to make a permanent commitment to her; when he talks her out of contacting the demonologist, we see her thinking that he’s not taking her opinions or her genuine fears seriously enough.

The Ouija Board Incident Hinckey. Katie says, “Micah, don’t bring a Ouija Board into this house.” Micah says, “I promise I won’t buy a Ouija Board.” He borrows a Ouija Board. He thinks he’s so clever, because he only promised not to buy one. This should raise all kinds of hinckeys -- when a boy has been raised properly, he will not go through life trying to get away with this kind of stupidity. If you stay with him, you’ll have to be the one to finish raising him.

We can see her deciding to think about it all later when things calm down. We see her never getting the chance.

Paranormal Activity Relationship Advice Summary: Just Playing House is a Bad Plan.

It's out on DVD!:

Also see About Last Night teaches the same lesson, and watch All That Jazz for the scene where the guy is in the hospital, and the live-in girlfriend isn’t allowed in to see him but the ex-wife is.

About Last Night was based on the David Mamet Play, Sexual Perversity in Chicago, which is worth reading as well.

My Boyfriend is Jealous and Obsessed -- But That's Good, Right?

2009-11-03T05:28:00.000-08:00

My boyfriend is jealous and really obsessed with me, but that’s good, right?

It might be flattering in the beginning to have a boyfriend who is so intensely into you that he wants to know every detail about your day and who wants to have you all to himself.

It’s flattering in the beginning, but it gets scary very quickly.

It’s Halloween season, and the great movie Poltergeist is playing for free on television. The older daughter in Poltergeist was played by Dominique Dunne, who had a boyfriend just like you’re describing – charming, talented, jealous, obsessive. In their short relationship, he beat her three times and ultimately murdered her.

The kind of guy who gets this jealous and obsessive may seem confident on the outside, but he is very insecure in reality. He sees you, not as the fabulous person with minor flaws that you are, but as an angel who will save him, and when you slip from being an angel, it’s devastating – and justifies tantrums on his part that often include hitting.

Here is part of a letter that Dominique wrote to that boyfriend – it was read into evidence at his murder trial:

You do not love me. You are obsessed with me. The person you think you love is not me at all. It is someone you have made up in your head. I’m the person who makes you angry, who you fight with sometimes. I think we only fight when images of me fade away and you are faced with the real me. That’s why arguments erupt out of nowhere.

Dominique understood what was happening, and she understood the character of the guy, she just understood it all too late.

Guys like this are often very charming, and at first the relationship seems just like your true love has arrived – he loves you at once. ‘Course, some day Prince Charming will arrive, and things will go swimmingly – but how do you tell the difference?

First, Keep in mind always the Three Variables of True Love – in a bad scenario, the guy will be violating the Second Variable of True Love – Time. He’ll be in a rush for big, public commitments, for living together.

Second, watch for jealous, obsessive behavior – here is another quotation from Dominique Dunne's letter:

We have to be two individuals to work together as a couple. I am not permitted to do enough things on my own. Why must you be a part of everything I do? Why do you want to come to my riding lessons and my acting classes? Why are you jealous of every scene partner I have? Why must you know the name of every person I come into contact with?

Third, if any of this starts to sound familiar, especially if this person is known for having a temper, sit them down in a loving way and make this speech (not from a movie, just from a wise woman):

“You will never get a second chance to hit me. If you hit me today, I’m gone. If you hit me on our wedding day, I’m gone. If you hit me the day our first child is born, I’m gone. If you hit me on our 50^th anniversary, I’m gone.”

And then you follow through. From Dominique’s letter:

The whole thing has made me realize how scared I am of you, and I don’t mean just physically. I’m afraid of the next time you are going to have another mood swing.… When we are good, we are great. But when we are bad, we are horrendous. The bad outweighs the good.

Get Poltergeist at iTunes:

Get Scale Inequities

2009-10-19T07:04:00.000-07:00

Get Scale Inequities

To find really true love and escape bad romantic situations, you need to understand The Get Scale and you need to develop a keen eye for get scale inequities.

You need to know where you stand, both in the grand, public Get Scale the world operates by - the mathmatical equivalent of the H'wood Dweeb Marital Fallacy #1 - Marriage is a Mutual Trophy Acquisition Procedure - and a truer platonic get scale of real quality and character and other boring stuff.

Given a relationship where there's an inequity in the relative ranking on any of the get scales, you need to wonder why, you need to proceed cautiously.

The standard Get Scale Inequity is the story of rich and powerful using and discarding youth and beauty, and you need to make the decision in advance to sidestep situations where you’re likely to be used and discarded.

Watch what can happen when a really cute guy plays up to a girl who isn’t used to that kind of attention – we all know he’s after her money, but she’s too nervous to suspect:

Watch the whole clip, so you get the idea of how unpopular and undesirable she is – but the gorgeous Montgomery Clift shows up at about 3:45 minutes in. Watch how easy it is for him to manipulate her -- now and forever after, this seduction con won't work on you -- you've educated and thereby innoculated yourself.

Another great movie illustrating the concept is Dogfight, where a group of jerks have a bet: who can bring the ugliest girl to the party. Here’s the scene where River Phoenix sweet-talks Lili Taylor, a girl who isn’t used to that kind of attention.

This movie is worth watching in its entirety, although it’s very painful in parts.

To survive romantic encounters in the real world, you must have a realistic assessment of where you stand on The Get Scale, and you've made a good start.

The most important Get Scale Inequity is The Dorothy Stratten Get Scale Inequity, which we’ll get to soon enough.

The "Get Scale"

2009-10-16T05:29:00.000-07:00

Follow this blog, and you’ll learn all you need to know to triumph in love.

With the starter question, “Does He Like Me?” you must first understand The Get Scale. Who can "get" who?

This is the Fifth Couple – at about 2:50 minutes into the clip:

From When Harry Met Sally:
FIFTH WOMAN: He was the head counselor at the boys' camp, and I was the head counselor at the girls' camp. They had a social one night. (beat) And he walked across the room. I thought he was coming to talk to my friend Maxine, because people were always walking across rooms to talk to Maxine, but he was coming to talk to me.

Here's where power issues meet with sexual awakening - we've been aware that power and status and sex were all linked together since any of those items first come upon our consciousness - could we get the best looking guy in the class? a football player? a yearbook editor? First, second, third bad boy? Will people always walk across rooms to talk to us?

Please don't misunderstand me -- when I refer to The Get Scale, I do not mean the scale of real character and quality - just the perception -- basically the mathematical equivalent of The Hollywood Dweeb Marital Fallacy II - Marriage is a Mutual Trophy Acquisition Procedure.

It's still important to understand, tho - so you don't have an experience like Martha Dumptruck does in Heathers - about 1:50 minutes into this clip:

The Bad Heathers wrote a love note from the "cool" football star to the unattractive girl - and because she didn't understand everybody's ranking on The Get Scale, Martha, the unattractive girl, had a very bad day.

The Get Scale isn't the real measure of a person's actual value, but it is important to understand how it works if you are going to safely negotiate your own love life. Next - Get Scale Inequities.

I'll be referring to both these movies a lot, so go ahead and buy the Movies Now:
Also buy Nora Ephron's screenplay:

Netflix, Inc.

Twilight and "You'll Love Me At Once"

2009-04-07T08:39:00.000-07:00

Well, we’re going to have to re-visit the problem of “You’ll Love Me At Once” and the known issues of movies-into-brain-seeping. All because of Twilight.

Don’t get me wrong – I loved both the book and the movie. Just wanted to remind you all that in real life, when the most gorgeous guy on the planet suddenly and for no apparent reason says he’s fallen completely in love with you, it’s almost never going to prove to be real.

Of course, it’s possible. Sometimes two people are strong enough and have sufficient backbone to ignore society’s conventions and blah blah blah. But when you’re talking beautiful men – I mean, think about it – beautiful men always get their way the same way beautiful women always get their way.

Don’t believe me? Watch
Seinfeld Season Seven: The Calzone
30 Rock: The Bubble

It can happen, as I was saying. My all-time favorite exposition of this scenario is in The Girl Can’t Help It, where the blonde bombshell Jayne Mansfield falls in love with her sad sack agent – and by the way, in real life Jayne Mansfield defied tradition by being one of the extremely few blonde bombshell actresses to have a happy marriage and raise normal children – the fab Mariska Hargitay is her daughter.

The Best That Could Happen:
Really, almost the best you could hope for would be a The Way We Were Scenario. If you haven’t seen it, go see it now. The rest of this paragraph is a spoiler: the plain, earnest, brilliant girl actually gets the gorgeous guy – he really loves her, too – and when it’s all said and done, it turns out she’s too good for him. When you’re beautiful, and when everything comes too easily for you, you never have to bother to become a real person.

The Way We Were used to be Part Of the Popular Culture; I’m not sure if it’s survived to permanence there, tho.

The Worst That Could Happen:
The worst that could happen is what happens to the genuinely unattractive girl in Heathers – Martha Dumptruck – she gets a love note from the cute, popular football player that turns out to have been written by the popular girls to humiliate her. The Mean Girl Rachel McAdams played so well had its origins in the Heathers in this movie.

What Does Generally Happen:
Two good movies to watch to demonstrate what does generally happen – three good movies to watch to demonstrate what does generally happen are: Suspicion, Gaslight, and Dogfight.

I mean, we’re talking Cary Grant when he’s young and gorgeous in Suspicion – tho note that Cary himself insisted that they change the ending of the movie – watch it, it’s obviously not the intended ending.

And Charles Boyer was intended to be, and may have been to the original audiences, foreign and mysterious and romantic and sexy, in Gaslight. Actually, if you’ve never seen Gaslight, you really need to, because it’s Part Of the Popular Culture. Characters on television shows are going to be saying “hey, are you Gaslighting me?” and you won’t know what they mean.

You may not want to watch Dogfight, because it’s kinda distressing, though it’s probably the most accurate. And it’s rated R, so you might not be old enough.

But back to Twilight – at least Bella didn’t skip over the First Variable in Finding True Love – Character. He did save her life; he was humble about it; he and his family did have a good general reputation in the community, and she didn’t sleep with him in the first movie, which is always a good decision.

Riahnna and Chris and True Love part II

2009-03-23T05:32:00.000-07:00

Riahnna and Chris and true love part II (miss Part I?)

ShaundalynChic, I’ll get to your question at the end of this entry – first, I want to talk a bit more about Written on the Wind.

Okay, okay, it’s way melodrama, but it’s really well done for what it is, AND it gives you practically moment by moment, how one type of guy who hits gets the girl he winds up hitting.

Robert Stack is the archetypal rich drunken playboy who spots snappy no-nosense Laren Bacall and makes his standard play for her – the standard play is basically, “hi, I’m rich.”

That doesn’t work, and he goes to a different seduction con, “Little Boy Lost.” His father doesn’t understand him, he tries but can’t blah blah, “I find myself talking to you like I've never talked to anyone before ...”

Watch the movie – tell me if you don’t agree with me that Lauren Bacall marries him, not out of sudden, deep love, but because she thinks she can save him. The Invitation to Rescue. You can see how this can happen – sometimes he’s so sweet and fun, and rich, and from all appearances she’s the only one who can make him into what he really should be.

Everything happens in a whirlwind – because guys like this are spoiled babies who want what they want now, and because they’re afraid that once the girl really knows him she’ll run away.

He does really try; he stops drinking for about a year, but he's unreasonably jealous of Rock Hudson, and of course the first crisis brings him down, and he gets drunk and hits her. But even before that – pay attention – she’s not a wife, she’s a nanny, a nurse, an enforcer – is that a marriage?

If you’ve got a friend like Rihanna, sit down and watch this movie with her – see if you can get some real conversation going. It’s high drama, sure, but the characters are absolutely true.

Buy Written on the Wind - click image

And, ShaundalynChic, the reason for Oliver! is the Nancy character – dark for a musical, I know – Bill beats her and eventually kills her, and through it all she says she’s so happy because he needs her – here’s her big musical number:

Download the movie Oliver! from iTunes now! or just the one song:

Riahnna and Chris and true love part I

2009-03-20T05:09:00.000-07:00

Riahnna and chris and true love part I

Remember where we started out, with how to tell if it’s true love – the very first rule is:
1. Character - Yours and His

Basic Rule: if either yours or his is seriously flawed or
completely absent, the relationship will not ultimately work,
even (and this is the hard part) even if there is actually real
love. There are no known exceptions to this rule.

It’s a bummer of a rule, and it’s a bummer to have to use the lovely Rianna to demonstrate it. My best guess is that she really loves the boy, but as you can see, where there are serious character flaws, longtime true love is simple unworkable.

Why would she even consider taking him back? My best guess is – not that she thinks he’ll never hit her again, not that he’d be worth it even if he did hit – she’s considering taking him back because she thinks she can save him.

This breaking-news relationship issue is jumping us ahead somewhat in our study of seduction techniques. Two of the three main techniques are premised on the issue of relationships as rescue. that notion is based upon a false premise.

i. The false premise of "the invitation to rescue"

Romantic relationships are not the place to redeem souls and redirect life goals; redeeming souls and redirecting lives are the provinces of priests and social workers. Maybe shrinks and professional career counselors.

Love cannot, by itself, magically change a bad man into a good one. Save as many men as you feel the need to, certainly, but not in a context of romantic love.

Tragically, the more massive the stores of goodness and charity we carry within ourselves, the more susceptible we are to this lose-lose-lose situation.

Resources for Rihanna and others in this situation:

Rianna’s friends should do the following: Sit her down and watch these movies, all of which demonstrate the impossibility of Rescue in a romantic relationship: A Star is Born (I prefer the Judy Garland one, but all will make the point); All That Jazz, Written on the Wind, and maybe even the old musical Oliver!

In all of these, you’ve got a woman who loves a man who’s a mess who uses herself up in trying to save him and who fails, because it’s not possible. For a heartbreaking account of marrying a man with a longstanding reputation as a womanizer, see The Unbearable Lightness of Being.

Second, Rianna’s friends should purchase these books for her and get her to read them – books written by or about real women who had relationships with men just like Chris. Really, when you read the details about life with a guy who fancies himself a player, you'll never want that for yourself or your kids.

Lucy in the Afternoon: An Intimate Memoir of Lucille Ball
No More Idols
Ava: My Story

I Can’t Believe You Didn’t Know It Was A Line!

2009-02-25T06:05:00.000-08:00

I Can’t Believe You Didn’t Know It Was A Line!

In the very first episode of “Friends,” Monica falls for a seduction line and doesn’t even realize it until Joey and Ross explain it to her. (Refresh your memory - download it now:

It’s a sad, sad thing that this line continues to work when it's been excruciatingly well documented in movies (the best examples are in Some Like It Hot and Pillow Talk). Monica fell, but you won’t have to, if you follow this blog.

Seduction Con Lines

Luckily for us, even after centuries of guys desperately pooling resources and stealing seduction ideas from books and movies and each other, the lines they come up with are pretty predictable.

Seduction Con Lines will generally fall into three basic, easily recognizable categories, with subcategories as plentiful as the desperation that drives them, along with one scheme that never, ever works on us but that two subgroups of sub-men, with blindingly hilarious stupidity continually believe will work someday. Plus the one seduction con that’s been working pretty effectively since about 1960.

We’ll get to all them.

But as a preview, Monica fell for what has to be called the “Some Like It Hot” seduction – Marilyn Monroe, alone with Tony Curtis on a yacht, is on her guard against being seduced. But Curtis pretends to be – shall we say, “harmless,” moving Marilyn to take on his harmlessness as her personal fix-it project, plying him with champagne and kisses to get him, shall we say, up to speed.

Doris Day falls for the very same seduction con in Pillow Talk, which we’ll get to in some detail and again in Lover Come Back.

Stay with me, and you’ll soon know every seduction technique, plus the effective counter-measures.

The Idea of Him & Safely Married

2009-02-19T06:01:00.000-08:00

If you let it, The Idea Of Him can be a dark force that nudges us into relationships that, like the Sally & Joe relationship in When Harry Met Sally, may not be really traumatizingly bad for us, but are serving only as placeholders and that are wasting everyone’s time.

See, Sally thinks she’s in a “Man Who Can’t Commit” relationship – they talk it out, and that’s as far as he can go. But what she was really in was a Man Who Refuses to Settle for a Safe Marriage relationship.

When Joe actually met the girl he wound up marrying, it happened fast; what’s difficult for us as women to wrap our minds around is, this is not an insult to Sally. Sally’s a bit Type-A; she’s wracked with remorse – if she had been lower maintenance, Joe would have married her, blah blah blah. Almost unconsciously, she sees it all as a competition that she lost.

Joe is the hero here. Well, and Sally. But especially Nora Ephron – she’s conceding a fault of smart women, but it’s a concession better to face and move forward – a certain percentage of these Men Who Can’t Commit relationship scenarios are actually Women Who Want To Have Been Right. With strong hints of I Don’t Want To Have To Start Over.

Women do this all the time, and in recent decades women have wasted the universe’s time with piteous appeals that men are soul-less and fickle, and it’s pretty dadgum brave of Nora to admit that sometimes girls are just in a hurry and that the boy was right to sideswipe Safely Married and hold out for Gloriously Married.

Keep following this blog, and we’ll get you Gloriously Married.

Post-Valentine's Day and The Idea of Him

2009-02-16T06:16:00.000-08:00

The Idea of Him

In When Harry Met Sally, the title characters are discussing their ex’s, and Sally confesses that she doesn’t really miss “him”,

Sally: You know what I miss? I miss the idea of him.

The Idea of Him is a powerful force in our lives – the notion that we’ll have a date on national holidays, that we’ve succeeded, somehow.

If you’re not in a relationship, it’s possible that Valentine’s Day was difficult for you, not – almost certainly not -- because you are actually lonely, but because the notion of The Idea of Him floats in the ether, almost requiring you to feel unhappy if He’s not in your life.

Stripped of all the emotion, it’s almost a comical force.

Sally’s best friend, Princess Leia, well, anyway, Carrie Fisher, illustrates for us the absurdity of letting The Idea of Him rule our lives. She stays in a pathetic, semi, in reality just being used relationship with a married man; she keeps a Rolodex of available single men; despite the face that she has a great job and great friends, she makes herself frantic and unhappy for years. Then she meets the right guy, when it’s the right time for both of them, and everything falls into place, and she’s wasted an insane amount of time and energy, but you don’t have to.

So, we’ve got Jane Austen giving you the advice not to be in a hurry; we’ve got Nora Ephron giving you the advice not to be in a hurry; we’ve got Aunt Lee giving you the advice not to be in a hurry – it’s something to keep in mind.

Note – we’re eventually going to be spending a lot of time with When Harry Met Sally; you’ll want to consider buying the screenplay, which will make it easier to keep up and will get you acquainted with screenplay formatting, because I’m going to convince you to write your own.

Next, The Idea of Him and Safely Married.

He's Just Not That Into You - Now Do You Believe Me?

2009-02-13T07:15:00.000-08:00

See -- there is a lot to be learned from watching and absorbing what happens in movies.

One very helpful principle that somehow didn't make it into the Keira Knightly Pride and Prejudice was this exchange:

Mrs. Gardiner: "You are too sensible a girl, Lizzy, to fall in love merely because you are warned against it; and, therefore, I am not afraid of speaking openly. Seriously, I would have you be on your guard...."

Lizzy: "All that I can promise you, therefore, is not to be in a hurry. I will not be in a hurry to believe myself his first object. When I am in company with him, I will not be wishing. In short, I will do my best."

So, consider -- if the characters in this new movie would merely heed this very basic advice -- don't be in a hurry -- think how much misery would be avoided.

Remember the Second Variable in finding true love is time. There's plenty of time. Almost certainly, you won't be single as long as I was, and I survived; it's better to wait and get it right. And while you're waiting, watch gobs of movies.

Love's Dozen - The Next Six

2009-02-12T06:08:00.000-08:00

We're learning about men and love from movies -- catch up on the first set of required viewing.

Remember, my advice from the situations in these movies will be life-changing, but to get the full benefit you'll actually need to watch the movies. It's one thing to read in black and white about how Katharine Hepburne wastes her time with a man ridiculously unworthy of her in Desk Set; it's quite another to experience it all along with her.

Philadelphia Story – intuition and magic and character and time and what women want to hear from men;
When Harry Met Sally – men who can’t commit, framework for making sexual decisions, sex for non-sexual reasons, female screenwriters;
Postcards from the Edge – truth about playboys, female screenwriters, The Rush, seduction;

Pat and Mike – character, safely married vs. gloriously married;
Holiday – Love’s Hinckeys, The Peanut Speech of True Love;
Desk Set – men who can’t commit, magic, gloriously married;
To Have and Have Not – intuition, character, gloriously married.

Baker's Dozen - Born Yesterday - Abusive Relationships

Before long, you’ll not only know lots about true love but lots about classic movies – heaven knows you’ve wasted gargantuan moments watching awful movies – pay attention - there will be quizzes.

Aunt Lee Says: Everyone will be on Netflix eventually -- why not start now?

Love's Dozen - The Most Important Movies for Understanding Men

2009-02-10T05:41:00.000-08:00

Honestly, you can learn everything you need to know about negotiating your path to true love from old movies. To get the full benefit from my advice, you'll hafta actually watch the movies -- half the point of the process is that you experience what the character experiences.

Follow this blog, and you’ll eventually learn about dozens of movies, but you should at least know in some depth the top twelve. Here's the first set; I've provided convenient clickables to get the movies from Amazon or, when available, straight to your iPod from iTunes:

Pillow Talk – playboys and seduction;
Rear Window – men who can’t commit;
Where The Boys Are (1960)– seduction – character and time love factors, The Get Scale, and the most important modern seduction technique;
Roxanne – seduction and what women want to hear from men, why we really love men, and Gloriously Married;

Way Down East / Fast Times at Ridgemont High (they’re really the same movie) – seduction and youth and sex and playboys and true love;

Keep Reading --

Everybody will be on Netflix someday -- why not start today?

On to the next set:

Hollywood Dweeb Fallacy II: Marriage is a Mutual Trophy Acquisition Procedure

2009-02-09T07:53:00.000-08:00

The Hollywood Dweeb Marital Fallacy II:

Marriage is a Mutual Trophy Acquisition Procedure

In Hollywood, in Hollywood movies, in Junior High, the object of relationships is to show off, and personal happiness is a remote secondary issue.

Take Brittany Murphy’s character, Tai, in Clueless (still the best film adaptation of a Jane Austen novel). She actually really likes stoner dude Travis but is talked into liking Elton, higher on the social ladder but really kinda empty and soul-less and boring. (In the novel Emma, Harriet actually loves a cute farmer boy, but Emma talks her into loving the vicar, Mr. Elton). The Tai/Harriet character lets herself be persuaded that she can “get” someone higher on the social scale but is never really happy; she just thinks she should be happy.

Remember the three love factors: Character, Time, and Intuition. Ambition’s not there anywhere, is it? For fun, go through the three factors with the Cher/Emma character and Josh/Mr. Knightly – see the difference? She’s known him long enough to establish his true character, which is fine; and although intuition hits late, it hits hard: bingo – True Love.

"He could have anybody, and he wants me" is not the central issue of a love affair, at least outside junior high or Hollywood, although it always seems as if it should be. It probably has seeped into your brain – shake it off.

If you can't wait to catch up, get Clueless at iTunes now:

Type A Girls: Get the Emma audiobook now from iTunes:

The Hollywood Dweeb Marital Fallacy I: An Offer of Marriage Instantaneously Rights All Wrongs.

2009-02-03T05:33:00.000-08:00

We’re going to look at ways that movies-into-brain-seeping can mess us up. Here’s:

The Hollywood Dweeb Marital Fallacy I: An Offer of Marriage Instantaneously Rights All Wrongs.

It's the wicked stepsister of "Love Conquers All". It's revisionist history at its most insidious. It's hooked a lot of fine women up to men who don't really deserve them. It's the pinnacle of crazed fantasy which precedes the raging abyss of marital property division and child support enforcement.

It's the standard romantic comedy denouement, so ingrained in our unconscious that it's startling to realize we really don't believe it in our rational selves.

If I'm too late and you actually believe the fallacy, ask any two hundred married women -- they will assure you quickly that marriage hardly erases a man's faults.

We’re going to talk at length about playboys in movies, those perennial non-committers, as we go, but for now, know that Pillow Talk represents the standard – a gorgeous, cool guy sleeps around with everyone on the planet and then accidentally falls in love with an intended conquest.

Somehow, in Pillow Talk, nobody ever stops to wonder how Doris, who fell in love with chaste, polite, chivalrous Rex Stetson is going to be happy married to rude, selfish womanizer Brad Allen. But I want you to.

And nobody really worries about Gwyneth Paltrow – we all just assume that Iron Man and playboy Robert Downey, Jr. would give up all the bimbos if he made a commitment to her. But I want you to.

This Hollywood Dweeb Marital Fallacy should have no place in your own decisions about making lifelong commitments. All I'm saying is watch for it. It's the basis for almost all Hollywood happy endings and almost no real life ones.

Learn about the Hollywood Dweeb Marital Fallacy II.

If you can't wait, get Iron Man at iTunes now:

Movies-into-Brain-Seeping

2009-02-01T09:42:00.000-08:00

As modern women, our romantic lives are sort-of prescripted by what we've seen people in the movies do. We see movie people in all kinds of private moments where we never see friends and neighbors, and we incorporate a huge movie-character database into negotiations of our own love lives. It's inevitable.

As we all know, movies have their conventions: Boy meets, gets girl, misunderstanding, happy ending. Unhappily, romantic movie conventions have the tendency to seep into our unconscious, motivating us to follow, neither our hearts nor our minds, but our dim memories of what Julia Roberts said to Richard Gere.

When the creative minds from whence our movies flow are sensible, intelligent and humorous, movies-into-brain-seeping works in our favor.

When the creative minds from whence our movies flow are dweebish, heedless of history, psychologically uninformed,self-involved, and shallow, as is very often the case, we can still benefit - we can gain helpful insights of how powerful and
shallow people would produce a world; we can learn by negative example.

Thumbs up or down, movie worlds afford us the accumulated romantic experience of lifetimes of very intelligent people, male and female, on specific guy-related issues we face every day of our lives.

If we only knew where to look.

Four Wrong Things You Can Do With Your Intuition

2009-01-29T08:18:00.001-08:00

Let's establish when not to pay attention to what our inner voice is telling us.

The Four Wrong Things You Can Do With Your Intuition

Non-newbies know several things about intuition - but only because they messed up and figured it out later. There are four main dangers about intuition:

1. He is Undiscovered Treasure. You cannot rely on your intuition that although he seems to be a bad guy, although everybody you know who's not in love with him thinks that his character is completely awful and that he's a danger to you, you can trust what your heart is saying - that he's actually a wonderful guy who, with your love and help, will make all your own dreams come true. It never happens except in the movies.

2. Your love is so great, though instantaneous, that you are reading all his thoughts, and he is reading all yours. This also never happens except in the movies. A great example of this is in the classic Letter from An Unknown Woman, where Joan Fontaine throws her life away because what she thought was magic was actually a skillfully constructed seduction con.

3. Pretend it’s intuition when it’s actually desperation. So here's where I reveal a secret about us girls: sometimes we pretend to ourselves that passion just flat out overcame us, just like Jennifer Jones saying no and no and actually slashing Gregory Peck's cheeks with our fingernails in our earnest desire to keep ahold of our virtue except that passion overrules us and it's not our fault. (Duel in the Sun -- one of the worst movies of all time; one of the most watchable worst movies of all time.)

But we aren't really giving in to a wave of passion, we're making a conscious choice to cast ourselves into the abyss because we're bored or we're troubled, we’re afraid we’ll be alone forever, and we hope that maybe something wonderful might come out of abyss-casting through sheer dumb luck. But we say it was just one of those excitement of the moment things; we say we're trusting our intuition.

4. "She sounds like that voice inside your head that tells you you can't do anything." (Fom Postcards from the Edge' -- she's referring to her grandmother) Everybody hears this voice occasionally, even Meryl Streep, who says it in the movie and Carrie Fisher, who wrote it. It's nothing to worry about; it's something that will pass if you’re calm. [Can't wait? Get Postcards from the Edge now at iTunes: ]

Keep Reading!

Buy Letter From An Unknown Woman now - learn how to resist a seduction:

Intuition -- The Fun Love Factor

2009-01-28T11:41:00.000-08:00

Intuition - You Just Know

The Second Variable in Finding True Love

2009-01-27T05:18:00.000-08:00

[Need to catch up on the first love variable?]

2. Time -

We all remember Sleeping Beauty, singing in the forest:

Though I know it’s true
That visions are seldom all they seem,
But if I know you, I know what you’ll do,
You’ll Love Me At Once

We tend to focus more on the “love me at once” part than the “visions are seldom all they seem” part. And why not, it’s fun.

But let’s back up to the fab Pillow Talk movie, where Rock is pretending to be a nice guy to get Doris into bed – here’s a critical exchange:

"So nice to meet a man you feel you can trust," says Doris,
and "I'd say, five or ... six dates ought to do it." says Rock.

Remember, the three variables to working out whether it’s true love or something less are: character, time, and intuition. And it’s so tempting to skip the first two and dive right into the fun one, but that’s the way girls get their hearts broken – actually, if you only get your heart broken, you’ve been lucky. (See also Kate Winslet's Marianne in Sense and Sensibility).

Guys like the Rock Hudson character play on our fantasy that everything will happen in a rush – they can play you and leave without having to put in much of their time.

If this relationship lasts, this will have been the most romantic moment of my life. If it doesn't, I'm a complete slut." Kathleen Turner, in War of the Roses

It’s a gamble. Don’t worry, though; follow this blog and learn everything there is to know about seduction techniques, and you’ll increase your odds considerably.

If you're the kind of gal who likes to be ahead of the class, go ahead and watch Meryl Streep's unfortunate adventures in ignoring time in relationships in Postcards From the Edge now from iTunes:

Reese Witherspoon and Ryan Phillippe

2009-01-26T05:35:00.000-08:00

Reese Witherspoon and Ryan Phillippe.

No, not the actors, God bless them and grant them a measure of privacy, the characters they played in Cruel Intentions. Reese played a sweet virgin, and Ryan played the bad guy who pretended to be a good guy to get her into bed but accidentally fell in love with her, and suffice it to say, it does not end well.

We talked before that the three variables to work out in finding whether it’s true love start with Character – yours and his – and now we’re at:

(b) His character.

I know you don't believe me -- yet -- but whether your lover has a fine, upstanding character will not only provide gargantuan clues as to the authenticity of his love, but it will eventually determine if he completes your life or wrecks it beyond repair.

In Cruel Intentions, Ryan plans to pretend to love her just long enough – all the pretty things he says are lies. This is a common pattern in movies: (and in life, dear)

In Pillow Talk, a movie where Doris Day is exactly like you even though she’s a fictional ‘60’s character, Rock Hudson poses as Rex Stetson, tourist from Texas, polite, chivalrous and true. He says in a voiceover, “I’d say, five, or six dates ought to do it.” He has to pretend, because he knows she already knows he's an unapologetic jerk who wouldn’t get past an opening line if she knew his real name.

These guys can’t keep up the charade forever, though, which will take us to our second variable, Time.

Can't wait? Get Cruel Intentions now at iTunes!

3 Variables of True Love

2009-01-21T05:30:00.000-08:00

Discerning the difference between love and lust involves paying close attention to three principal variables: character, time, and intuition.

1. Character - Yours and His

The Keira Knightly Pride and Prejudice version got a lot of things right, but they left out this very important line from the book:

Elizabeth: To be sure, you knew no actual good of me, but nobody thinks of that when they fall in love.

Basic Rule: if either yours or his is seriously flawed or completely absent, the relationship will not ultimately work, even (and this is the hard part) even if there is actually real love. There are no known exceptions to this rule.

(a) Your character. Do you have any?

There's a reason we’re starting with How To Tell if It’s True Love and not "What are the better entrapment techniques?" It's because I presume that you're interested in a relationship that lasts a lifetime, a happy and integral complement to your already rich and interesting life.

In another Jane Austen-based film, Sense and Sensibility, Kate Winslet falls for a man no character, and he breaks her heart, luckily before she marries him and he destroys her life and reputation as well. Marianne threw caution to the winds when falling in love with Willoughby, disregarding then-existing rules of social conduct. Unquestionably, Willoughby loved her, but his nefarious deeds and general selfishness of character made lasting love impossible.

There's a period of time in the storyline of the sisters where both feel they've been dumped, but Emma Thompson at least has the comfort that she didn't fall in love with a jerk.

Ironically, while Marianne thought she was finding wild romance with Willoughby and that Colonel Brandon was boring, she eventually found that Colonel Brandon was a wildly romantic creature with a tragic love in his past.

Meanwhile, watch the storyline of Emma Thompson and Hugh Grant -- Hugh Grant makes the difficult decisions to honor his commitments and do the right thing, and everything works out for them.

Can't wait? Get Sense and Sensibility now at iTunes:

Keep Reading!

Aunt Lee Says: Everybody will be on Netflix eventually -- why not start today?

Is It True Love?

2009-01-20T06:10:00.000-08:00

In When Harry Met Sally, Joe says it and does't really mean it, although he thinks he does. In About Last Night, Rob Lowe says it and means it, although he doesn't realize he does. In Rio Bravo, John Wayne doesn't say it, he says "You go out like that and I'll arrest you", but he means, I Love You, and Angie Dickinson knows it.

In Where The Boys Are, Dolores Hart says, "Unless you love me the way I love you..." and George Hamilton says, "I love you!" which you can see for yourself in the trailer for the movie:

They think that "I love you" is their trump card, the phrase that will invariably grant them entrance into our souls and bodies. And it sort of is. But how can you tell if the love they're offering is real, or if you are merely a conquest to them? Is it possible at all?

In 1959, Doris Day was able to make this distinction when rogue Rock Hudson actually proposed marriage, but those were more hopeful times. By the sixties, in Where the Boys Are, Yvette Mimieux seems to believe in a convoluted scheme in which the fact that a real Ivy League Boy actually shows up in her life and wants to sleep with her indicates true love. In the late seventies, I thought you could tell it was true love if his eyes actually, literally sparkled.

Since this is the basic question in all romantic relationships,I can't answer it completely here. Okay, I can't answer it completely anywhere, ever, and I don't have easy answers, either, like the sparkly eyes thing I personally had such high hopes for. Mostly, all I can do is to help point out the questions you should be asking yourself.

Keep reading and find out how to find your true love.

Can't wait to get started? Get When Harry Met Sally at iTunes now!

Dating Violence Movies

2009-01-13T14:59:00.000-08:00

Get Poltergeist at iTunes: