According to a quote I found on the internet, Nora Ephron who co-wrote and directed Sleepless in Seattle had this as her intention when writing Sleepless:

“Our dream was to make a movie about how movies screw up your brain about love, and then if we did a good job, we would become one of the movies that screwed up people’s brains about love forever.”

I think she did a pretty good job because it certainly got me thinking about the idea that some people know instantly that he or she is ‘the one’. Or in Widower Sam’s case the ‘next one’. Not five minutes after the film ended my best friend sent me a short text – “stupid movie :)”. Yes, two grown women with way too many years of combined dating experience, are still getting sucked in by the idea that someday we’ll look some guy in the eye and we’ll know that yes, it is fate, destiny, he’s the one.

Fortunately, I am 1/4 cynic so I will snap out of the daze. I mean, come on! It would never have worked between Annie and Sam. She’s basically a stalker, and he just knows a pretty woman when he sees one.  Jeez, even I’d stare if a woman like Meg Ryan walked passed me.

Ok, so what happened after Sam takes Annie’s hand and they go down the escalator? Think about it for a second. Tough eh! Do they part on the street never to see each other again? Does Sam get a hotel room somewhere and they stay up all night talking? Does she sell up everything the next day and fly back to Seattle with them? Or perhaps they stay in their cities and start writing to each other, long detailed letters, supplemented by long desperate phone calls. Perhaps Sam’s friends tell him he’s crazy, and to stick with women in Seattle. Maybe Annie flies to Seattle for long holiday weekends. Perhaps they meet up every few months half way between Seattle and Baltimore. Eventually at some point, one party has to up stakes and move to be with the other. My guess is it would be Annie (after all wee Jonah has had too much change is his young life already).

Maybe Annie moves in with Sam and Jonah. No wedding just yet, it is after all the 90’s and the modern woman doesn’t need a ring to be secure in her man’s love for her. But does Sam discover that Annie is a neurotic nagging fruit loop? Or does he find her endearing and lovable? Maybe Sam clips his toenails in the living room, snores, farts in bed, is too close to his mother, and always forgets to take the rubbish out. Sounds a bit like real life now doesn’t it! And getting away from real life is precisely why we will spend 90 minutes believing that the guy will get the girl and they will be happy forever.

I know it’s just a movie, but it does bring up some valid questions. I’m particularly interested in this ‘I just knew he was the one’ idea. Do people really know like that? There are many paths to love, some simmering, others are a slow burn, but they get there in the end. But do people really walk into a room and lock eyes and know that they just have to meet each other?  I’m absolutely certain some do, but it’s not the majority. I know because I’ve experienced something like it myself, but it can’t have been my fate to be with him (not that I entirely believe in fate). If it was fate, he would have got my number, not suggested that we’d run into each other at another event. We never did run into each other at an event, but I did see him once a few years later in a book store. And he saw me too. We looked at each other over our books, and then his gorgeous girlfriend walked over and put her arm around him. Yip, that’s real life. It’s messy and confusing, and sometimes the guy gets the other girl.