I saw the great movie He’s Just Not That Into You yesterday, and I laughed and cried with the rest of the theater in the middle of the afternoon when I should have been at work.
Then I thought about my life and realized the urban lifestyle was completely not covered in this manual of a movie based on the famed book of the same name.
The movie covered some common relationship situations, but the lives totally did not reflect what’s common in most metropolitan areas. Not only that, like the famed show Friends it was totally missing the mark in depicting the lives of other ethnicities.
The movie focused only on white relationships, while blacks and Hispanics were marginalized in roles as bar attendants and construction workers, which are common jobs for already marginalized groups.
Why were our relationships missing from the rule book? It’s simple; we have a completely different set of rules based on our lifestyle.
Money and time seem to be common denominators in the relationships of the characters in the past weekend’s box office winner. However, in many ethnic relationships, these things are in short demand, so relationships have complex getting-to-know-you and live-in situations.
If your love interest only has time for you on Facebook or MySpace, that person is in a relationship or looking for a quickie.
The movie did acknowledge that hookups happen on chat sites. Those sites are to keep in touch with family or to nail someone new. Don’t become a victim of this mentally. Use valid date sites like match.com or plentyoffish.com for dating and leave chat site contacts to your friends and family.
If your love interest never answers your calls, that person is with the one they are in a relationship with.
I’ve been a victim of this myself. Someone you are interested in and who is interested in you will pick up the phone.
If your dates only occur on the couch at home, you’re dealing with a broke person.
If that person works and still is not taking you out or disappears on the weekends and date holidays, he is taking someone else out. Don’t chase that person; drop him and run in the other direction.
If your love interest calls you at 3 a.m., that person doesn’t respect you. Don’t answer the calls and leave that person in the dust.
If that person refuses to marry you and you’ve been with that person a long time, don’t give an ultimatum, just leave. Most people refuse to budge on marriage.
I personally have a family member marrying someone this year after keeping the girl on hold for over 10 years. Frequently, people just don’t marry a person, because they are still looking.
Many people simply settle with the person they are with, keeping them from finding a soul mate while they remain free to play the field. After two to five years, most people know if they’ve found the one.
If you are married and your partner cheats and you find out, it was not the first time.
Fortunately, the movie covered this topic, but only with one relationship. The reality is that if a partner is caught cheating, they have done it before in the course of the relationship.
Sometimes you aren’t providing what they want. Don’t break your neck trying. Find someone else.
If you are messing with someone engaged in a relationship, it will not end well for you.
They will not divorce for you. If that happens, you are the exception to the rule. Otherwise, you are just a horrible, horrible person for using something that isn’t yours. Put it back and don’t touch it again.
Urban relationships become more entangled with multiple relationships and entangled sexual relationships. These things are all part of a dating game that could be avoided by being honest, which most people refuse to do.
Take a page from the book of life and be discerning about who you keep contact with and trim down your contacts to keep people of value around you.
