For some unexplainable reason, it’s inevitable that most girls like romantic comedies. It’s like the creator just bundled up the essence of every sweet indulgence, the most comfortable pajamas and the feeling of being kissed for the first time and sold it to us in the form of a cheesy movie with an unrealistically happy ending.
If I was going to pinpoint a reason why girls obsess over this particular genre, I’d say it’s all about the meet cute and the hope they bring. If you don’t know what a meet cute is, then you’ve been missing out and I suggest you Netflix the movie The Holiday. But here’s a quote the movie, so you know what I’m talking about.
“Say a man and a woman both need something to sleep in and both go to the same men’s pajama department. The man says to the salesman, ‘I just need bottoms,’ and the woman says, ‘I just need a top.’ They look at each other and that's the 'meet cute.’” – Eli Wallach’s character Arthur Abbott
There have been times when I’ve been watching these movies and I’ve been thinking “No way, that would NEVER happen in real life.” But I’m here to contradict myself.
Meet cutes are real. I’m a real person with real friends who have experienced real life meet cutes, they aren’t half as good as the ones from the movie and they don’t always lead you to the love of your life but they do exist. So here’s to hoping!
To start off a (hopefully) growing collection of meet cute experiences, I’ll share one of my own.
One day after work, my friends and I decided to have happy hour. We went to a trendy bar in River North and had a few overly priced handcrafted cocktails. Afterwards we made our way north, towards home but stopped in a casual bar in Lincoln Park. Thursday is $5 martini night, so we had our fair share of fruity martinis with names like Je Ne Sais Quoi.
There was a decent looking guy at the bar sitting next to me, he was tall, kind of nerdy, looked kind of like he hated life – my favorite kind. We just casually started talking about work, about college, about NATO, about other things. I was pretty buzzed from the overpriced cocktails and the underpriced Je Ne Sais Quoi’s, and have a tendency to make friends with strangers. Finally my friends decided it was time to go home, it was late for a week night, so we took off.
After I left, he approached one of my friends who had stayed behind and told her “That girl I was talking to might have been the love of my life, I didn’t get her number. Do you have it?”
She didn’t. That was the end of that story. But not really, because we went back to that bar a month later and a very daring friend of mine gave my phone number to the bartender who apparently knew the guy and passed it along to him. I got a text from him the next day.
There really isn’t much more to the story after that. It wasn’t love, but I was definitely flattered and it made me realize you shouldn’t hesitate to talk to anyone. You’ve got nothing to lose and everything to gain.