Are romcoms ruining our love lives?

“You said you didn’t want anything,” he pointed out matter-of-factly.

“Yes, but that doesn’t actually mean I don’t want anything,” I said defiantly. “You should have surprised me by sweeping me off my feet, or something…” He stared back at me, utterly perplexed, before - with his usual perceptiveness - pointing out, “You watch too many romantic movies.”

To be fair, box-office hits are not going to be made by showing couples arguing about who’ll take out the rubbish, but for most of us, that’s daily life. Therefore, the way these films portray romance is brainwashing us into thinking our love lives don’t cut it.

What evidence do I have to support this? Well, a team at Heriot-Watt University in Edinburgh, Scotland, studied 40 films released between 1995 to 2005, to establish common themes. They then asked hundreds of people to describe their relationship expectations. What they discovered was that fans of films such as You’ve Got Mail, The Wedding Planner and While You Were Sleeping (three of my faves), often failed to communicate with their partners, with many holding the view that if someone is your soulmate, they should know what you want and shouldn’t need to be told.

In short, if we think that love is a fairy tale, we are misunderstanding the everyday demands of being in a successful relationship. Don’t believe me. Ask any long-married couple the secret to a successful relationship and they will say hard work, not grand gestures. As much as the motion pictures would have us believe it, romance doesn’t succeed by magic.