Lights, Camera, Action!

A relationship is just like a movie. It has expectations, then an introduction, then some filler leading up to the climax, followed by the conclusion, or resolution.

The expectations come from critic reviews, trailers, previews, and the opinions of those who have seen or heard about the movie before. Movies, like relationships often make it past this stage. Bad reviews, no chance you are going to see it. Friends tell you it not worth seeing? You avoid it like the plague. Great responses from the media? You are ready to nominate it for an award before you have even seen the first five minutes. The only thing to offset the opinion of others is the trailer. If the trail is exciting enough, sentimental enough, emotional enough, it may still draw you in.

This is just like relationships. How much of our opinion comes from the opinions of others? We don’t concern ourselves that the taste of others and whether they like or dislike someone may be completely different from our friends. My best friend and I don’t even like the same foods, so why would I be dumb enough to believe we would like all the same girls? You wonder why we try to dress so nicely, keep a smile on our faces, nice house, nice job, and nice car? It’s our trailer! We use these things to sell ourselves, and draw others in.

Now, we will dig deeper by discussing the introduction. Movies take this time to lay the groundwork. They throw a lot of things at you, introduce you to characters and the storyline, and hope that something grabs your attention enough to compel you to stay. Often times there is a lot of overacting and over exaggerating of plot themes because producers know that in the first few minutes of the film you will already decide whether or not you like it or not. From that point on its twice as hard to sway someone opinion from bad to good or vice-versa because subconsciously we don’t want to admit our first impression are wrong. That’d be admitting fault in our own judgment.

Now, let’s look at that in terms of relationships. Once a person has already agreed to get to know us better (going on a date, conversation, etc) we try to put our best foot forward. We know how important first impressions are. We spend so much time selling ourselves, trying to give the other person what we “think” they want to see that we lose ourselves in the process. We overact and over exaggerate everything trying to get the other person to stay interested.

This is because we realize that just because a person has shown a little interest in us means nothing. Maybe they had nothing better to do. During this time we are still trying to either live up to the expectations of our trailers, disprove bad reviews, live up to good ones, or win a new fan. This is the most sensitive time period because everything is critiqued. When a person smiles we feel a small hint of success. Physical contact (holding hands etc.) really makes you feel like all the money you put into production (time you spent in preparation for the date and money spent in the process) is paying off. You make actually be able to build something with this person, or in a movies case: turn a profit.

On the other side of that you notice when that person doesn’t show you affection. Do they look at you or is there attention always elsewhere. When you talk do they seem interested, or can the slightest thing distract them. When you are around other people do they still act like they want to be there with you, or do they spend more time talking to everyone else and doing everything else to give the impression that you two are NOT together.

We only have a few minutes to let the person know that we are worth their time, or like a bad movie they will walk away.

After we survive that initial reaction we reach a bit of a slowdown period. No movie or relationship can avoid this. It’s not a bad thing at all, we just need some time to relax and settle down to prepare us for what is next, the Climax!

In a movie, the Climax is what everything builds up to. Every aspect of the movie ties together at this point. We find out the TRUTH about what’s going on and why.

Notice TRUTH is capitalized? It’s because this is what the climax in the relationship is based around. Whether you are with someone 5 days, 5 weeks, 5 months, 5 years, or 5 decades, the relationship does not reach the climax until we reach the truth. It’s when we stop trying to be pretty, stop trying to be nice, stop trying to be who you want us to be……but instead start being who we are. This is when we really see every negative and positive about a person. Every aspect about their spirituality and personality that was either hidden from us or we turned a blind eye to are now brought to the surface. NO ONE is 100% honest from the beginning. We all have secrets. If you know someone doesn’t like a particular thing you don’t do it. You may alter your speech and not curse, your appearance and wear make-up, your hair and wear weave or dye the grey out, and in general try to be polite. When we get comfortable after that “slowdown period” we let down those guards and people see us for who we really are.

Then our movie reaches a conclusion. The resolution is the aftermath of the conclusion. In the simplest terms, it’s what we do next. For everyone that has lasted up to the climax it is at this point that we decide whether or not it’s a good movie. Every movie, and relationship, has its good parts and bad parts, but are we satisfied? Was it worth it? Was is money, or time, well spent? Are you going to buy the DVD and keep it with you forever? Or did we hate it and want nothing more to do with it. Are we going to avoid anything that director, or person, does for the rest of their lives? Or maybe even it was just alright….. but we all know that if something is just alright we don’t want to spend even more money on it. We won’t waste money or time on something unless we know it’s worth it, or its all we can afford. But no one wants to just “settle” with a decent of bad movie right? We should rather have an empty shelf than one containing a bunch of crap. (I hope you understand the dual meaning in that last statement. It refers also to abusive and bad relationships that we may stay with because we think it’s the best we can do instead of just saving our money/time until something better comes along later)

Oh yea, and please avoid sequels. The sequel, like dating an ex, is never as good as the first time.