warning: chick flicks are hazardous to your (emotional) health

it’s been a pretty gloomy weekend. i think it’s been raining nonstop since saturday… the perfect weather for staying in and watching chick flicks which unsuprisingly is what i ended up doing this past weekend. throughout the past couple of months, nina and i have been slowly going through my personal chick flick collection. on days where we don’t feel like going out clubbing we normally end up staying in and watching a chick flick or two. i’ve actually been spending a lot of time with nina recently, be it clubbing, hanging out at my house watching dvds or grabbing a bite to eat after work. i swear if we weren’t both such girly-girls and really into men we could already been considered a couple. 😛

here are a few movies we’ve watched together already…

While You Were Sleeping. Mrs. Winterbourne. How To Lose A Guy In 10 Days. Two Weeks Notice. Someone Like You. Sweet Home Alabama.

and here are the movies we ended up watching just this weekend…

The Way We Were. Pretty Woman. The Mirror Has Two Faces. Strictly Ballroom. Notting Hill.

i don’t think we’re even halfway through my collection yet though. there still are a lot left with my favorite romantic movie scenes and other personal movie favorites like Cutting Edge, Dirty Dancing: Havana Nights, Ever After and many more. (if you’re wondering what all the links are for, they’re imdb links in case you’re interested to know the stories of each.)

after a significant amount of junk food and coca-cola consumed, a few tissues disgarded and somewhere in between julia roberts and hugh grant’s famous scene, i had to hit nina with a throw pillow to say, “we shouldn’t be watching stuff like this anymore!!!”

*sigh*

we’ve actually got some pretty good theories off some of these movies like it could take just 10 days to fall in love with someone (How To Lose A Guy In 10 Days) or that sometimes you can get engaged to a rich, handsome guy even if you’re chubby and just gave birth to a baby fathered by a drug-addict (Mrs. Winterbourne). yes, chick flicks are realistic, dontchathink? hahaha! we’ve actually had some pretty funny conversations where we convince ourselves that time is not an enemy for us anymore. ask my sister, she’s been privy to some of our really deep, intense ones. 😛

chick flicks are very much like fairy tales. they make us believe in happily-ever-afters, a concept which is intangible and really hard to grasp. don’t get me wrong, i believe in happily-ever-afters. after all, i am a product of my mom and dad’s very own happily-ever-after. more and more of my friends are finding their own happily-ever-afters and are getting married (much to my dismay, only because i’m not one of them yet). i guess it’s just kinda impossible to believe since i haven’t found my own yet.

chick flicks can be deceiving. where are all these wonderful, perfect men in real life? do they really exist or do they just exist in movies and fairy tales? if they do exist in real life, where are they? can someone point me in their general direction? even Hugh Jackman’s character in Someone Like You ended up to be such a gem after being an asshole in the beginning…

Eddie: It’s over. Why can’t you just let it go?
Jane: I can’t.
Eddie: Why?
Jane: Because I was happy. Because if this theory is wrong, men don’t leave all women, Eddie, they leave me.
Eddie: I know it hurts. I know. It’s so hard to believe that something that wonderful can ever happen to us again.

*tear*

not all chick flicks have happy endings though. The Way We Were, Closer and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind are just a few examples of those brutally true movies that just hit straight to the heart. and i love each one of them just as much as all the others. i ended up sharing The Way We Were last weekend with nina and she loved it. i haven’t watched it in a while so i ended up crying along with her. of course immediately after that, we ended up watching a happier movie. we really didn’t want our optimism to be overshadowed by brutal reality.

perhaps there’s nothing so wrong with wanting to be in-love in a movie. it worked for Meg Ryan, didn’t it? ;P

matters of the heart

as i watch Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan hold hands during the last scene in Sleepless in Seattle, i can’t help but sigh and wonder, when is it going to be my turn? (cue background music: oh tell me where? / where is that someone who will turn and look at me / and want to share my every sweet imagined possibility? [A Piece of Sky, Yentl]) i would be lying if i said that the thought of ending up alone doesn’t scare the crap out of me because it really does.

breaking up is hard to do

during the past couple of days, i’ve been consoling a friend who is coming to terms with the finality of her break-up. she and her ex-boyfriend called it quits more than a year ago but maintained a good friendship. we know how tricky that could be, right? to make a long story short, he has moved on while she has not. and of course, she’s devastated.

having had my heart broken before, i know how much it can hurt. as i listened to her tell her story while having cocktails in a crowded bar, memories of the pain i once felt came flooding back. it was a struggle to maintain my composure when she started crying. there is so much i wish i could do to help her forget the pain but i know there really is nothing i can do but be there for her. she kept on apologizing on being such a downer but i told her that my friends kept me sane during my dark hours and that meant everything to me.

it truly is hard to imagine how a person can move on after such a devastating loss but as i’ve learned, and i’m sure most of you have learned too, we all move on. it’s just the way it is. it truly is sad to think that a relationship ends and each person eventually finds someone else to be with but that’s the natural way of things. life goes on.

where are the boys at?

seriously, nasaan sila? hahahaha!

my mom has already told me that maybe i should try a different sport since it seems that i haven’t met anyone in ultimate during the 3-4 years i’ve been playing it. to this, i answered that i play ultimate because i enjoy the game and the company of all my friends and not to meet potential partners. i found it funny though that my mom had to tell me that. 😉

i once hoped i’d find love in the workplace but that didn’t work out so there goes another option.

i don’t think i’ll find a “good” guy in any of my gimiks either. let’s face it, guys in bars are mostly hoping to score and aren’t really looking for long term relationships. while this can be fun once in a while, it’s not really fulfilling at all. i  go out to party more to enjoy the company of my friends rather than get picked up by guys.

so once again i have to ask, where are all the good guys at? can anyone out there help me out? hahahaha!

hope springs eternal

there is a book that has been catching my eye for a good number of years now, When God Writes Your Love Story. having read both I Kissed Dating Goodbye and Boy Meets Girl, i have a pretty good idea what that book may contain. whether or not you believe in a God is a personal preference. but i love the thought that i am a love story waiting to happen.

tv shows such as Sex and the City and Ally McBeal deal with the struggle modern women face with juggling a career and a lovelife. i love how both shows have dealt with the wacky situations single gals can get themselves into. but what i love most is the fact that no matter how many scrapes the characters in each of the shows get themselves into, they never stopped believing that true love was out there for them.

it’s important that we keep believing that love is out there for us, no matter how bad things may seem.

i’d like to leave you guys with one of my favorite quotes from Rilke. i have to confess that i was just reminded of it tonight while i was checking my blog for past entries.

“believe in a love that is being stored up for you like an inheritance, and have faith that in this love there is a strength and a blessing so large that you can travel as far as you wish without having to step outside it.”
~ an exerpt from Letter 4 of Letters to a Young Poet by Rainier Maria Rilke

cosmopolitans + scotch = friendship with an ex

a couple of nights ago, while doing my usual bedtime routine which consists of scanning channels before settling on one to fall asleep to then adjusting the sleep timer to 20mins, i was able to catch an old episode of sex & the city. in this episode, carrie was wondering: “In mathematics, we learned that “x” stands for the unknown. “a” plus “b” equals “x”. But what’s really unknown is: what plus what equals friendship with an ex? Is this an unsolvable equation? Or is it possible to transform a once-passionate love into something that fits nice and easily onto the friendship shelf? I couldn’t help but wonder… can you be friends with an ex?“ later on throughout the episode she comes to the conclusion that cosmopolitans + scotch = friendship with an ex.

i’ve never had an ex-boyfriend, having been a member of the Single Since Birth Club since, well, birth. however, i’ve had another type of ex: the guy-i-was-in-love-with-who-didn’t-quite-love-me-back type of ex. one of them is in Beijing now and the other one is someone i see at a regular basis. it sucks when an “ex” is part of the same group of people you hang out with. we’ve both become adept in the civil department, not really addressing each other unless completely necessary and if we find our eyes meeting we just quickly avert them as though nothing happened. once in a while, a smart-aleck-y friend would send a well-placed barb our way which we both would ignore. it’s become a comfortable situation, after a fashion.

recent events, namely the possibility of him liking a new teammate (yet again!), have got me thinking if it’s possible for us to be friends again. it shouldn’t be too hard to imagine being friends with him again considering we were pretty close once.  even after the “breakup”, we still remained to be close, sometimes going out for coffee and discussing random stuff in our lives. but then something else happened which changed our dynamic and it hasn’t been the same since.

a close friend of mine congratulated me recently when i told her that i had chatted with the guy-who-liked-me-but-i-didn’t-like-back during the exciting and emotional (for me) match between Nadal and Soderling. she said that it was great that we can put the animosity aside and be friends again to which i replied that there was no animosity just a lot of awkwardness (and sometimes irritation) on my side. yes, it is a two-way street. sometimes you get hurt and sometimes you hurt someone else.

so what happens when a great love, or maybe just a passionate affair, ends? can two people transform from being intimate lovers to just good friends? i honestly don’t know the answer. i think it depends on the situation and the people involved. i believe that time can heal most, but not all, wounds and that eventually we all forget. As Joan Didion said: “We forget all too soon the things we thought we could never forget. We forget the loves and the betrayals alike, forget what we whispered and what we screamed, forgot who we were.” (and because i don’t know how to segue into this link, i’ll just post it as is and hope you’ll be intrigued enough to click it. :P)

perhaps someday i’ll be able to have coffee and laugh over fun memories with an ex. perhaps we’ll always be tiptoeing around each other. who really knows, right?

on stardust

i was able to read the book prior to watching to movie thanks to my sister. and although the movie was quite different from the book, it was still very funny and entertaining.

training was cancelled last night because our field was flooded and i was happy enough to suggest that we all watch stardust as an alternative. at first i thought there’d only be four of us watching but our final count for the night was twelve. kamusta naman sa fieldtrip?! hahaha.

hay naku, ang ingay ni joy!!! as soon as tristan, played by charlie cox, got a makeover she couldn’t stop gushing about him. kamusta naman sa super kinikilig sa lahat ng scenes!?! grabe, mas gusto ko pa ata pag tulog si joy. hehehe.

oh well, tinatamad ako gumawa ng review. basta it’s a good film. not the same as the book but when is an adaptation ever perfectly in sync with it’s book.

one thing came to mind the entire movie though:

note to self: if a guy wants to catch a falling star for you, don’t let him. he might end up falling in love with her. 😀