Beware if you watch a romantic comedy with that hot date this Saturday night. It could ruin a perfectly good love relationship. How?
According to experts from Heriot Watt University in Edinburgh, Scotland, romantic comedies promote unrealistic expectations when it comes to love and relationships in the real world. The BBC News reports that some of the worst offenders, such as "Runaway Bride" and "Notting Hill," flaunt relationships where partners fail to communicate.
The commonly held on-screen view, which doesn't work in real life, is if a lover is meant to be with you, he or she should know what you're thinking without you having to explain it. The problem is that it doesn't work that way since we can't read each other's minds. Open, honest communication between lovers is critical for long-term relationship success.
In this study led by Dr. Bjarne Holmes, the Heriot Watt researchers evaluated 40 top box office hits between 1995 and 2005 - including "You've Got Mail," "Maid in Manhattan," "The Wedding Planner" and "While You Were Sleeping" - and identified common, unrealistic themes.
"Marriage counselors often see couples who believe that sex should always be perfect, and if someone is meant to be with you, then they will know what you want without you needing to communicate it," Holmes told the BBC. "We now have some emerging evidence that suggests popular media play a role in perpetuating these ideas in people's minds.
The problem is that while most of us know that the idea of a perfect relationship is unrealistic, some of us are still more influenced by media portrayals than we realize."
During the study, 100 volunteers, all of whom were college students, were asked to watch the 2001 romantic comedy "Serendipity," while an additional 100 watched a David Lynch drama. The researchers determined that people who like to watch romantic films are more likely to believe in fate and destiny and have a stronger belief in predestined love.
"Films do capture the excitement of new relationships, but they also wrongly suggest that trust and committed love exist from the moment people meet, whereas these are qualities that normally take years to develop," study team member Kimberly Johnson told the BBC.
