Men and Movies.

I'm picky about movies. I don't like gratuitous violence, yet one of my favorite movies is Pulp Fiction and I saw Public Enemy recently and enjoyed it. I like movies with a heart, with characters I grow to love, and that teach me something about life. I like to avoid movies that make people look stupid, but I really enjoy the new Bromance style movies, like Hangover and I Love You Man, that show men's shortcomings yet make them seem human and loveable.

But I should have skipped The Ugly Truth, a movie so predictable that I could have told you the whole plot and the ending within the first few minutes. Listen, we're all human, we screw up and make mistakes and sometimes we embarass ourselves, but this movie made both men and women look bad. Really bad. Granted, there were some laughs, but mostly at the expense of the main characters and I found myself squirming in my seat as I watched them make fools of themselves and then, of course, fall in love. Actually, the guy started out being a real jerk and turned out to be a nice guy and the woman pretended to be sweet and nice and was really a "psycho controlling" b**tch.

So why write about it? I think about my last post where I wrote that it's important while dating to be real, to be honest, to be sincere. And then I think about how, in these movies, we seem to enjoy it the most when we see people at their worst. Is it that we feel bad about ourselves sometimes and laughing at another's goof-ups makes us feel superior? Is it that we are really mean and enjoy seeing people being harmed? Or is it that we are raised watching violent acts on TV and the movies and are so desensitized that we now laugh at another's pain? Geez, I see the billboards for a new children's movie that shows small rodents carrying machine guns and I am horrified.

So what makes me write about this, you say? I hear about my women friends' dating experiences and it just seems so frustrating, how we want to meet someone with good values and similar interests, yet we rule them out for superficial things, like being very overweight or having bad teeth. Yet, we're human and mating seems to harken back to the cavemen times when we women picked the men who we thought would be the best providers and protectors. And don't forget that the men apparently mated with a lot of women in those days, spreading their seed far and wide to keep the species intact. But we're past that, aren't we, and all of my women friends are self-supporting and don't need a man to support us. But still, it would be nice to have someone open the door and tell me I'm beautiful, no question about it.

So I really wrote this rambling post to say that, no, the Guy Panel won't happen this month because I was unable to find enough guys willing to participate. And the Wow meetings have been on hiatus for a few months, after my being sick for the beginning of the year and recently taking a vacation and planning another one and having my best friend visit soon. So who really needs a guy, after all, since we ladies have family and grandchildren and good friends? No, we don't need one, but it might just be really nice to have one around, anyway.