Predictably, More on Character

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.

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

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:

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.

Riahnna and Chris and True Love part II

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

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

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

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:

Four Wrong Things You Can Do With Your Intuition

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:

Reese Witherspoon and Ryan Phillippe

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

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:

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