When Harry Met Sally

God I love this movie.

I have to watch movies on fast-forward for Janet's class (to understand the rhythm and variation of scenes) but I knew if I put this one on I would actually watch it and I'm glad I did.

Interestingly, I never thought my state of relationship would affect the way I watch romantic comedies. I don't think I've seen this movie without having a serious boyfriend or being in an officially-determined relationship. Watching it this morning made me both deliriously happy and sad simultaneously.

Harry and Sally fall in love over a period of a decade, which sounds like a lifetime to me, but this aspect of their courtship actually fills me with complete and utter hope. I like the idea of taking my time. Conversely, on the way there, both characters go through moments of despair, embarrassment, and confusion, reinforcing what I already know, that interacting with the opposite sex is full of those difficult moments, hard-to-read signals, game-playing, withheld feelings, lies, fights, and other completely awful things. I mean, Harry compares Sally to a dog at one point.

In a relationship, those not-so-fun aspects of love are dealt with together. You can, for example, easily call your boyfriend and find out exactly what he meant by some comment he made. He's obligated to listen. When one of you hangs up on the other person, you don't feel weird calling back. You, presumably, love each other. You have a safety net.

In the purgatorial waters of dating, that security doesn't exist. Watching the movie, I saw Sally going to her girlfriends for dissection and interpretation (which is almost always a bad idea, I've discovered). She's scared. And so am I. Scared of getting hurt, saying or doing the wrong thing, completely embarrassing myself (which I've learned at this point in my life is unavoidable so I just have to live with the fact that, yes, I will live in a perpetual state of mild humiliation).

Anyway, it was cathartic to watch the characters suffer and struggle. And it was purely delightful to get to the end and see Harry and Sally finally happy with themselves and each other. Life doesn't work so perfectly, of course, but I can't help but wish for the day when a man I love says to me something along the lines of that speech Billy Crystal delivers towards the end of the film:

I've been doing a lot of thinking and the thing is...I love you...I love that you get cold when it's 71 degrees out. I love that it takes you an hour and a half to order a sandwich. I love that you get a little crinkle above your nose when you're looking at me like I'm nuts. I love that after I spend the day with you, I can still smell your perfume on my clothes. And I love that you are the last person I want to talk to before I go to sleep at night. And it's not because I'm lonely, and it's not because it's New Year's Eve. I came here tonight because when you realize you want to spend the rest of your life with somebody, you want the rest of your life to start as soon as possible.

*Sigh*

Now that's worth waiting ten years for, in my opinion.