Aristocracy's Mail Order Bride

The Break Up wasn't the easiest movie to watch. Luckily about 2/3 of the way through the" break up" Vince and Jennifer decided they still liked each other. That made the hateful things they were doing to each other more comedic. I sighed a sigh of relief when the movie reached this point. Unfortunately a relationship I once had that bore a remarkable resemblance to this one did not turn out as well. The majority of my past relationships with women have been successful. I am not saying no one ever got hurt, but for the most part we separated on peaceful terms. That allowed closure for both parties, and we were free to go on with our lives with no bleeding wounds. Only once have I had the challenging experience represented in the movie "The Break Up." To this day we still have no real closure on the situation. It is with this post I would like to explain what happened. Recently there was a program on National Public Radio that said marriage was becoming an institution for the elite. This struck a chord with me, because twice I have been involved with women where the 'break up" was caused by money. The first occurred years ago. I had lost my gig teaching at a major university, so I had to redirect and find another means of support. I began playing music live in bands. I was able to make just enough money to support myself, but the lifestyle I had before which allowed me to have a relationship was gone. It was a monetary issue. My girlfriend was enrolled in college at the time but for some reason decided to stop going to class. She seemed happy sleeping on my couch all day long. This was disturbing to me anyway, but in view of my current financial situation I needed help from her, not sleep. This was causing stress, because I did not have a full-time job that allowed me to support the both of us. Considering she was a college student still tethered to her parents purse strings, I felt it wasn't my responsibility. Courtship is another matter. Dates and gifts and restaurants are all worthy receivers of a man's money, because these are the things that assure we get what we need. There is a process between men and women. You either pay in the short term or you pay in the long term. Paying in the short term would mean going to a prostitute and buying sex. Paying in the long term would mean investing in a "relationship" hopefully that will yield what you need. I feel this is the tried and true method of courtship in America. It is a full-time undertaking and has been a major part of our culture for a long time. I have left this process behind, because the older you get the less you want to subject yourself to the possibilities of humiliation and rejection. As an adult why should our emotional fate be left to someone else? The answer is because traditionally we are reared as co-dependant beings. We are taught a kind of relationship where partners are intimately tied as soul mates sharing everything. The heart bleeds and emotions are worn on the sleeve. At least that was how my first and most successful relationship was. This is a vital component of youth, and you can see it personified in the eyes of John Travolta and Olivia Newton John on the CD cover of the soundtrack for the movie Grease. There is wonder and amazement and a sense of the unknown in their eyes. The older you get the more this disappears, and reality sets in. The things you need are crystallized, and it is easier to barter for them in a tangible process rather than trusting "fate." It seems a little naive to surrender your feelings to the wind. My most recent relationship was like this, and I grew to appreciate it. Now you were no longer vulnerable to the prospect of being hurt by another person. You grew a tough skin and hunkered down to live your life albeit devoid of the traditional trappings of love. As I posted earlier, I channel those feelings into music. In the first relationship its demise was the result of lack of money, but she never knew that. I never have been able to express that to her. She married a drummer, and that was the end of that. I am not saying the split was a mistake, but for me the 'break up" had no closure although it ended. Many of the quirky things Anniston resorted to in the movie happened in our own "break up." It wasn't pleasant to re-experience those, mainly because she was using manipulation and persecution as tools to make him jealous. That is a mistake. It doesn't make sense to use someone else even in the inexplicable and irrational world of women. Vince worked long hard days, and when he came home in the afternoon wanted to sit down and take a load off his tired feet. That is a reasonable expectation. Somewhere in the mix the two planned a family dinner, and she had been preparing for it all day. Vince, because of his tiredness, was obstinate in resigning himself to setting the table or bringing her 12 lemons. He played her needs off as petty compared to his own. She on the other hand was demanding more respect and help in the relationship. It was untimely, but they both stood their ground, and so ensued the plot of "The Break Up." That was a difficult situation, because in the midst of strong feelings by both, it is difficult to find your compassionate self. All she wanted was his loving side to surface and reassure her he still was committed to the relationship. He was pissed off and needed to vent his anger first. It took a couple or weeks for this to happen, but so there was your story. What is confusing is the extreme tactics Anniston used to try to regain his love. Jealousy, public humiliation, and other acts could be seen as comedic in a movie, but one never knows the dividing line. He found that out later when she cried after he missed a concert, even though she had broken up with him. Her method was flawed, so we as an audience must acknowledge that. What she did was wrong. The grift is, much of Hollywood is doing the same thing, showing immoral behavior in an intended humorous context. It could be a suitable challenge for actors to play "bad guys" for a change. Many actors and actresses long to leave their "goodie two shoes" roles behind and play something meatier. When a producer casts a traditional actress into a traditional-appearing role, and that turns out to be evil or bad, what taste does that leave in the audience's mouth? You never see it cumming. Oops, I mean coming. My first exampleof this was Steve Martin;s role in Shopgirl. The movie is seen through the eyes of Claire Danes, who falls for a handsome, rich, prince-like character. In the end he turns out to be bad. We went through all that romance with her only to be jilted when he turned out to be a selfish user. Because of this the movie is morally ambiguous for the majority of the time. That is not fun for the audience to sit through. We don't know who the good guy is and who the bad guy is. I personally didn't want to rehash the experience of being in a bad relationship in the movie theater. "The Break Up" assured me I have made the right decision in abandoning people as a component for personal happiness. People these days don't really deserve to be married, because they don't know how. Marriage takes a commitment. That commitment means, even in times of strife and hardship and hatred and animosity, the commitment takes precedence. It people in a couple understand that, then you can get through periods of instability. Common decency and respect help. Parading other men in front of your intended spouse is no way to arouse him. Vince finally tells Anniston, "Why didn't you just tell me?" Instead it was a complex array of games and manipulations trying to get what she wanted. I guess it wouldn't have been very funny to watch rational adults work through these problems. Movies such as "About Last Night" and "The Break Up" wouldn't' exist. I came out of the theater thinking relevant thoughts but feeling just as maimed as I did seventeen years ago when my ex-girlfriend did these things to me. The funny thing is, she didn't want me back like Anniston did. She just wanted to hurt me for having hurting her, and she did. Three years of intimate good feeling has the incredible capacity to do damage when it turns to evil. That was the most difficult part of it all, not losing the girl, but watching her turn into something that seemed evil. That was an unprecedented wake up call to the presence of evil. Granted she misconstrued my actions as evil, but they were not. I always wanted to explain to her nothing that happened was premeditated, vitriolic, or antagonistic. It simply was a plea to find solstice in a difficult situation, and a suitable solution was never found. As a result I had no no closure, and all of those unrealized emotions came back to haunt me in almost five years of clinical depression. No one deserves to go through that, and it is unfortunate it all transpired as the result of a misunderstanding. In Anniston's and Vaughn's case one must ask, "Is a man that talks on a microphone all day and plays violent video games at night really compatible with a woman that sells art in a high brow studio?" Does a fast-talking character such as many as John Cusack portray really have what it takes to satisfy the needs of such a woman? Is a desire and an attraction grounds enough upon which to form a relationship? These are the questions that should be asked first, but then again that would be boring in the movie theater. I think this film was therapy for Vaughn, and I hope he gets the closure he seeks.