“Love… above all things,
I believe in love. Love is like oxygen.” It may be true that
all you need is love. But the romance addict takes this
a little too literally. “The boy, Tom Hansen of Margate
New Jersey grew up believing he’d never truly be happy
until the day he met… the one.” They put finding the perfect
relationship above all else, and they feel like real life can’t start
until they meet the One. “I’ve been dating since I was fifteen,
I’m exhausted! Where is he?” Here’s how you spot this
relationship-hungry character onscreen: At their core, the romance addict
is in love with love. “I deserve to be with somebody
Who loves love!” Their grandiose ideas about romance
probably come from fictions, rather than actual experiences -- “We need, like, a moment, right? A moment, like, where the prince
and princess pledge their… troth.” -- and like us, they might have watched
a few too many rom-coms. “Met in an elevator.
My hair came undone. Are you kidding me?
I’m basically Sandra Bullock. And then it happened…” “Did the elevator just stop?” But the hopeless romantic’s high
expectations for a fairy tale ending can make them easily disappointed
by real-life relationships or hopelessly picky
about potential partners. “One minute, he’s too thirsty.
The next minute, he’s too distant.” “You’re impossible to please!” Even more than they love love,
the romance addict hates being single. “I’m done being single.
I’m not good at it.” Any time spent out of relationships
feels like a failure. And they approach the hunt for the One
with a type-A professionalism that takes the romance (and the fun)
out of dating. “It encourages professional women
to approach finding a mate with the same kind of dedication and organization
they bring to their careers.” Although they may spout
optimistic rhetoric about love in general -- “But, it can happen.
People do live happily ever after!” -- they’re likely to feel fatalistic
about their own love lives and catastrophize
their romantic disappointments. “I’d finally die fat and alone,
and be found three weeks later, half-eaten by Alsatians.” The weird thing about
the relationship addict is that they’re often a real catch,
but they’re so obsessed with finding the perfect guy or gal
that they often make themselves unlucky in love. “Have you noticed, Molly,
the common denominator in all your ‘can’t find a man’ bullshit is you?” Here’s our take on three habits
that the relationship addict uses to self-sabotage, and how more nuanced versions
of the trope reveal that buying into the empty promises of onscreen romance
can doom your search for the real thing. [Music] Hi everyone! Exciting news, today we have
a new episode of Take Two airing on Netflix Film Club
YouTube channel! Today’s big question: Who is the ideal guy of our times
according to modern rom-coms? Is it the sensitive cool guy? Or is it the secretly awesome dork? Check it out on the Netflix Film Club
YouTube channel! [Music] “I’m going to meet the perfect guy
and I’m going to get married!” The first way that a romance addict
can sabotage their chances for love is by scripting their relationships. “I’m gonna get married at 26,
have my first baby at 28, a boy, Christopher--” “Named after Christopher Robin
from Winnie the Pooh.” No, named after Christopher…” The romance addict’s behavior
may stem from a dreamy, sentimental place,
but their actual dating life might be characterized by a
neurotic drive to plan the future. “Ross, you have planned out
the next 20 years of our lives! We’ve been dating for six weeks!” The productive, perfectionist version
of the romance addict tries to ensure their picture-perfect ending arrives
in a certain way by a certain time, as if writing themselves into a rom-com
-- though to anyone else, the specifics might seem more
high-maintenance than enchanting. “Well, it’s not like I have a list.” “Oh, yes, you do--" “Attractive, college-educated,
she wants two kids: a boy and a girl.” “That’s not hard. I know at least--” “I’m not done.” It’s true that there can be benefits
to the kinds of life goals they set. Research shows that married people
have social, legal, and economic advantages over single people,
an inequity called singlism. “Think about it!
If you are single, after graduation, there isn’t one occasion
where people celebrate you.” But scripters view reaching
romantic milestones as a necessity. “I feel like he was just
checking off his boxes. Get into a relationship, check.” “Hmm.” “What?” “He sounds kind of like you.” Most of their scripts align closely
with social norms, placing value on conventional aspirations
like marriage and children. “At last, life is on track.
Bridget Jones: fiancé, wife, mother!” And while these traditional goals
can be meaningful for many, of course, often scripters haven’t done enough
introspection to differentiate between what they really want,
and what they assume they should want because it offers external validation. “Charlotte treated marriage
like a sorority she was desperately
hoping to pledge.” Scripting love isn’t usually
very fulfilling, or very successful. Often, the relationship addict’s
dating history is kind of abysmal. Whereas we all know
that serial monogamist who’s always in a long-term
relationship (even if it’s not the most
passionate affair): the choosy, volatile relationship addict
might rarely be in long-term relationship or take a while
to settle down. “Stop watching these stupid dating
shows and get in the game, June! Go out and meet somebody.” “I have very tough criteria!” Still, many consider themselves
experts on love. “The olive theory is based on
my friends Marshall and Lily. He hates olives, she loves them.
In a weird way, that’s what makes them such a great couple.” By giving out unsolicited
relationship advice to others, they attempt to affirm their
precarious romantic ideas, even while, deep down,
they’re plagued by doubts. “I-I want to believe,
but nothing is happening and… I just don’t think it’s working.” Underlying everything the romance addict
does is a panic -- as if they believe both that marriage and a family
are the only things that matter in life, and that for some reason,
they won’t be able to get those things (whether it’s because they’re unworthy,
unlucky, or just doing it wrong). “Why does she deserve to get married,
and I don’t?” What’s sad about this is that --
out of anxiety that they may never get what they most want --
the insecure romance addict tries to fast forward through
the actual romance part, just to be sure that they get
the happily ever after. “I have fond the future
Mrs. Ted Mosby!” Often, this character is talented
or successful at their career, where it can be useful to be
an expert planner with initiative -- but they’re unlikely to fully
appreciate their achievement at work because they haven’t placed the same
importance on this as a milestone. Charlotte in Sex and the City
stops working after she thinks she’s found her ideal husband,
and is a little taken aback by the long line of others
who would kill for her amazing job. “It seemed every aspiring ‘gallerina’
in New York wanted Charlotte’s job.” When the romance addict brings
their professional enterprise and organizational zeal to love,
though -- “How to apply successful business
strategies to finding a husband.” -- this doesn’t work. The script is designed to eliminate
the risk in love -- but it can also destroy the spontaneity. Passion and chemistry are replaced
by a laundry list of traits that just took good on paper. “But I thought you were feeling Jared.” “I am! But girl, these League [BLEEP]
have been vetted. And Jared didn’t even go to college.” Above all, this character seeks control. “I have decided that this is the year
I’m getting married.” “Charlotte! That’s wonderful!” “Who’s the lucky guy?” “Well, I don’t know yet!” Recognizing that love is
to a large degree mysterious and out of our control, not a recipe you can replicate
with the right ingredients, can be devastating
to the relationship addict. In the worst cases,
they even turn to obsessive or violent behaviors to cope. “She left notes on my car,
she threw trash on my lawn, she left voicemails
yelling about how I wasn’t helping enough with the dog.
I don’t even have a dog.” But impossible standards are a mindset
you can work through, like we see in Insecure’s Molly Carter. “You act like finding someone
is supposed to be some sort of fairy tale, but it’s not!” In therapy, Molly learns
about another scripting habit called magical thinking,
which revolves around her need for control. “When we believe what we want
can influence the external world as opposed to accepting things
as they are.” Rather than continuing to orient
her goals around what she’s supposed to do
or what her life “should” be -- “You frame a lot of things
in your life with ‘should.’” -- Molly has to develop a more
open-ended mindset, so that she can start valuing
the achievements and relationships she’s be discounting as not enough. “If your ‘shoulds’ didn’t come
to fruition, would you be open to your life
looking a different way?” Later on, when she finds herself
insisting on fixing a romantic relationship that’s no longer working -- “We gotta go to therapy,
I’ll be more open, I’ll share more.” -- she’s forced to honestly ask herself
why, and whether this is what she really wants. “I-I can be better.” “What are you fighting for right now?
Is this what you really want, Molly?” Sooner or later, the romance addict
has to accept that some things will always be outside of their control. When scripters finally grasp that love
doesn’t go according to plan, they usually do get happy endings --
which just may look a little different than they expected. “I don’t care if you ever marry me.
I just want to be with you.” [Music] “With her tendency to romanticize,
it pushed towards a certain worldview. [Long pause] Rosy, if you will.” The second way that a romance addict
can manifest or sabotage themselves is with the quintessential romantic’s
problem: idealizing love. “There, they dance together at a ball,
or, they kiss in a tower, they sail on a magic carpet
through the sky. I just want to look into Greg’s eyes
and, you know, have a moment!” The dreamy romance addict
can be deeply sweet. Obsessing over romance makes them
a master of the adorable hallmarks of onscreen romance: dramatic professions of love,
grand gestures, and constant devotion. But they spend a lot of time
in their imagination -- dreaming up elaborate fantasies
In their heads, which might be based only on a couple of actual interactions. “I ran into Josh, he made me feel warm
inside like glitter was exploding inside me, then I moved here.” This can mean they’re not on
the same page as partners they don’t even know that well. “It’s a great look… But you’re looking
at the wrong girl.” “No, I’m not.” “Yes, you are!” There’s a word for this compulsive
longing for your feelings to be reciprocated by someone who may be
more of an idea than a reality to you: limerence. “What if this man is my destiny,
and I never meet him?” And it often feels like romantic stories
can encourage these one-sided, unreal infatuations, without offering
much in the way of guiding us through the messy, mundane parts of
maintaining a relationship. Through the romance addict character --
who’s often a fan of rom-coms, fairy tales, or other grand romances -- more recent narratives offer us
a meta-critique of the way that narratives can shape or distort
our expectations of love. “So, the moment you’re craving
isn’t anchored in real emotion. It’s a script dictated to you
by our society’s patriarchal love narrative.” We see them compare their lives
to romantic comedies and tragic love stories, using pieces of culture to build up
their own personal mythos of romance. The dreamer romance addict
fixates on what life could be -- if only they had
their fairy tale romance. “I want John Cusack holding
a boombox outside my window. I wanna ride off on a lawn mower
with Patrick Dempsey.” They view love as all or nothing,
which can make them brave in love and capable of experiencing
romantic heights. “I don’t want to love in half measures.
I want it all.” But when life doesn’t quite live up to
the picture they created in their head, it just feels unfair to them. Molly bases a lot of her romantic
aspirations on her parents’ union, which she believes is ideal --
so she’s shattered when she learns that her parents marriage
overcame an affair. “Here, I am trying to find a [BLEEP]
like my dad, thinking that my parents’ marriage
is ‘the thing.’ All the while, their whole [BLEEP]
is [BLEEP] up too. The romance addict’s love-sickness
(or love-bombing techniques) can also be off putting for partners
who value reality or a down-to-earth perspective. “But... a life without love,
that’s terrible!” “No, being on the street,
that’s terrible!” Sometimes, more dramatic portrayals
of romance addicts demonstrate how the compulsion to seek out love
can be seriously intense or destructive. Netflix’s Love deals with love and sex
addictions in a clinical sense, through the character of Mickey Dobbs. “Sex and Love Addicts Anonymous.
It’s more about learning how to not… pig out on sex and love
and relationships.” Bing addicted to romantic validation
and dysfunction is just as damaging for Mickey as her drug and alcohol
addictions. “Hoping and waiting and wishing
And wanting love… hoping-hoping for love has [BLEEP] ruined my life.” Science agrees -- the feeling of love
gives us a hit of positive hormones similar to what we get from other
addictive substances. “I miss that feeling. When we were together,
doing all that stuff… [Sighs] I felt really connected
to somebody… And it felt good.” Crazy Ex-Girlfriend frames
Rebecca Bunch’s romance-addicted traits as funny at first, but later reveals them to be symptoms
of borderline personality disorder. “Profound fear of abandonment.
Instability in relationships. Unstable sense of identity.” As Rebecca learns to thrive
with a disorder that heightens the influence
that emotional attachments have on her, she shows us how hard life can really be
for relationship addicts. She’s dealing with extremes
of how much power love, idealizing, and isolation can have over us. “I know what I’m capable of…
when I feel abandoned… and it’s a place
where I can hurt myself.” Extreme romantic Lorna on
Orange is the New Black even appears to suffer from erotomania, the delusion that someone
is in love with you, despite evidence that they’re not. “I don’t know this woman, okay?
We went on one date! One! She’s a [BLEEP] stalker!” For all its dangers,
love is important -- “But you can’t live your life
without intimacy. You need and deserve love.” But the key for most dreamers
is understanding that relationships are a two-way street; they have to love a flawed person
instead of an idea. With any luck,
they’ll find that love in reality is much richer than the version
they spent so much time imagining. “And he makes me laugh.
And-and I feel like I can be myself around him.” [Music] The third way that
the relationship addict might self-sabotage
is by collecting relationships. “The One” is that ever-elusive
needle in the haystack, so finding them might seem
like something of a numbers game. If they fall in love often enough,
a relationship addict will have to find their soulmate eventually, right? “It’s like, okay, I’m ready.
Where is she?” First, they jump into
new relationships easily; their eagerness for this
to be the right thing right now leads them to ignore
obvious flaws or red flags. “He could really be the one.” “Charlotte, honey,
you’ve only known him for two weeks. You-you can know his e-mail address,
you cannot know he’s the one.” They’ll take the smallest signs
of compatibility to mean it’s a love written in the stars -- “Just ‘cause some cute girl
likes the same bizzarro crap you do… that doesn’t make her
your soulmate, Tom.” -- or have even idealized love so much
that they can picture their future with just about anyone. “I’ve been carrying that ring around
In my wallet for six years… Because you don’t know when
you’re gonna meet the right girl and the moment’s gonna be right.” But pretty soon, the collector
promptly invents reasons to end their relationships. Counterintuitively,
they can be quite shallow -- “If I’m gonna marry someone,
she has to be perfect.” -- only interested in someone
who fits a very specific profile and dumping partners
for the most trivial of reasons. “Charlotte broke it off then and there.
It would never work. He was American Classic.
She was French Country.” The pattern reveals that the collector
suffers from a surprising fear of commitment:
the thought of choosing wrong is more daunting to them
than putting the choice off forever. “Do you know what’s scarier
than being alone? You know what’s worse? Being alone with the wrong guy
for the rest of your life.” Love at first sight has long been
considered romantic -- but, it also leaves plenty of room
for the hero to show just how fickle his affection can be. Switching between romantic fixations
so quickly signals that on some level they see their romantic interests
as interchangeable: more than they want one specific person,
they want a relationship. “I don’t want to be single, okay?
I just-I just wanna be married again.” Getting bored and always searching
for the next person is textbook for these collectors, or ‘serial daters’
according to The New York Times. As clinical psychologist
Dr. Chloe Charmichael explains, “Most [of them] don’t realize
what they’re doing. They might sincerely believe
that they haven’t met the right person and be unaware that they
have a fear of intimacy.” “I realize why I’m still single.
I’m picky! I’m not going to settle!” For many of these characters,
relationship collecting is a form of denial -- it allows them to avoid
some essential truth about who they really are
or what they really want, which might diverge from the fairy tale. By his own account, Ted Mosby
on How I Met Your Mother wants nothing more than to get married. “Nothing hotter than a guy planning out
his own imaginary wedding, huh?” But for most of the show,
dating around is a distraction from the deeper truth:
that he’s not really looking for a wife; he’s just biding his time
until Robin wants him back. “There’s no top five, Robin!
There’s just a top one, and it’s you!” Charlotte and others, too,
only find peace when they realize they love someone
who’s not the ideal type they’ve been searching for -- “Harry’s not who I expected
To fall in love with, but I did.” -- which ultimately suggests
maybe they’re not the person they thought they were
(but maybe that’s a good thing). In the end, it’s up to the collector
to face facts about their behavior instead of hiding it behind a constant
rotation of love interests. “And I’m a sex and love addict.
And I… I think I need to just be by myself
for maybe, like, a year, and… try to figure this [BLEEP] out.” The romance addict can develop
a healthier outlook through better boundaries
and less catastrophizing -- and usually, they discover that
whatever they were afraid of wasn’t as bad as it seemed. “You’re gonna end up all alone
and with no mans!” “Well, maybe I am. Would that be the worst thing
that could happen?” The romance addict may have
a lot of wrong thinking to overcome, but they also have the most important
thing right: that love is worth it. “My good friend, Charlotte,
the eternal optimist, who always believes in love.” We can admire their perseverance,
their sensitivity of feeling, the ferocity of their passion. The point is usually just that
their image of love needs some serious updating --
this also means loving your friends, family, your job, your community,
and most of all, yourself. Love is vital for us all --
but it’s up to the romance addict to realize that includes much more
of their lives than they think. “Maybe it’s not that you
don’t have love in your life. Maybe it’s that you don’t
recognize it when it’s there.” This is The Take. What do you want our take on next? [Music]
