Twilight and "You'll Love Me At Once"

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.

The Second Variable in Finding True Love

[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: