KH COMMENTARY: Who's Line Is It Anyway?

Sister Dearest and I were channel flicking a few nights ago (one of my more favourite past times) when we accidently (and I mean, accidently) stopped on Home and Away.

We lingered just long enough to watch a scene play out between a teenage-angst-ridden boy and a teenage-angst-ridden girl. The two were apparently 'friends' who had feelings for each other, as goes the story on most teenage-angst-ridden television soaps. At one point, the teenage-angst-ridden boy turned to the teenage-angst-ridden girl and said,

"But the thing is, I don't just want to be your friend."

To which I let out a rather embarrassing snort and said to Sister Dearest

"How very primary school of him."

To which Sister Dearest replied in all her worldly knowledge,

"Indeed, adults don't say those kinds of things to each other. Instead, we just get drunk and hook up with our 'friends' at parties."

I nodded in approval and didn't really think much more of it until this morning, when I was getting my daily fix of Sex in the City while eating my breakfast (Don't judge me, it's part of my morning routine.) I was watching the episode when Carrie is being pursued by The Politician (Season 3, Episode 1). She's typically playing hard-to-get and in an effort to woo her out on a date, The Politician says,

"For the record...I can't stop thinking about you."

And you can just see Carrie's eyes get a little bigger as her heart starts fluttering and all her internal organs turn to mush. And all from the power of one well-delivered line.

While I know Televisionland is this mythical place where all the things we wished happened in real life do in fact happen, I still maintain that these shows - Sex in the City and Home and Away - are based on real people, real situations and real life (as unreal as they may be). Which means somewhere, some man is delivering a some warm line to some eye-lash batting, heart-melting-into-her-Jimmy-Choo-shoes woman.

So who is this guy because he must be one of a miniscule minority.

Men (and women - don't think you're innocent in all this too, girls) no longer use or feel the impact of a well-delivered line. I'm not talking about some corny pick-up attempt, ie. "Do you have a bandaid because I scraped my knee when I fell for you." I'm talking a declaration, the brutual truth delivered at the precise moment to cause the maximum impact on one's emotions.

We've traded down and instead, rely on drunken inhibitions to get who and what we want. There's no chase or pursuit out of plain sobriety. We hold our cards close to our chest until that moment of maximum inibriation when we let everything er...loose.

Why? Because we feel bullet-proof and when we stumble out of bed the next morning nursing the world's worst hangover, only to remember what we did the night before, we have our drunken stupidity to blame it all on.

It's crazy that we rely on a few stiff drinks to feel in control of our out-of-control behaviour. We need to down a quick vodka and tonic before that blind date or that bottle of champagne before we can say the things we've always thought. It seems like we're taking action because we think we've got nothing to lose, but really, whatever gets lost can be easily reclaimed by simply 'blaiming it on the booze' the following day.

Delivering a line takes more than just a few tequila shots or way too many glasses of cheap champagne. It takes dry, sober guts to put yourself out on the firing line and say exactly what you think and feel without the drunken safety net to catch you if you get shot down.

I remember someone telling me that it's better to drunkenly hook-up and then go out on a date because ending the night with the 'first kiss' isn't nearly as awkard.

Why are we so terrified of this type of emotional confrontation? We do everything we can to avoid the possibility of an akward situation because we don't want to appear embarrased or end up with egg on our face. We hold back from saying "I like you" or "I love you" out of pure fear that the other person won't say it back and then we'll look...what? Out-of-line? Over-the-top? Obsessed?

Why is it so wrong to be attracted to someone?

So we say nothing at all. We leave the one-liners to appear only on the television screen and hide our true feelings away as if they're somehow scandelous to admit to.

And the rest we blame on the a-a-a-a-a-alcohol.

(Image Credit: Melissa Blake - http://melissabxoxo.blogspot.com/)