We’ve spoken about romantic films and the lessons to be learned from heartstring-pulling, tear-jerking, sigh-inducing stories of true love. But how realistic are those films? Not very, you say? Well, yes, we can’t recall the last time a full orchestra played during a romantic kiss, clothes came off effortlessly in the throes of passion and you just can’t get those romantic-moments-in-slow-motion-montages in the real world.

All in all, the romantic film genre is probably not the most realistic, so we’re putting one romantic comedy, starring the queen of romantic film, Meg Ryan, to the test:
You’ve Got M@il deals with online dating, a subject we know a thing or two about. In the film, two bookstore owners meet through an online dating site and, at the same time, in real life. They fall in love online, dating via email and discovering the many things they have in common. When they meet face to face at a party, without knowing of each other’s online dating identities, they are business rivals, so there is little time for love. Hilarity, and a romantic happy ending, ensues.

While it is in the realm of the possible that two people meet through an online dating site without knowing that they have met in real life, we have never come across such a case in our experience of online dating. The online dating profile gives you some information about a person and once you have exchanged a few mails you would catch on pretty quickly that this is someone you have met before. All in all, it’s an improbable, if not impossible, scenario. Just for giggles, here’s some more stuff that the romantic film people got wrong.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, October 17th, 2007 at 7:58 am and is filed under Relationship Advice. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.