If you take a close look at modern media, particularly movies and TV shows, you can see where women have gotten the idea that women chasing men is a wise idea.
While watching Meet Joe Black (1998) again I noticed that this dynamic was in play throughout the movie. The daughter eagerly chases after Joe Black throughout the entire movie, kissing him first, hunting him down to have sex with him and proclaiming her love for him to everyone who will listen.
Here’s another example: the movie Elizabethtown. In it, the character played by Kirsten Dunst begins chasing after the character played by Orlando Bloom for the entire movie from the time she first sees him on the plane. She can’t help herself. Of course everything turns out fine and dandy in the end — love blossoms — but is that really how it goes in real life?
Have movies like this been slyly convincing women that they should chase after men?
One more example: the Showtime series Californication. As entertaining as this show may be, it is a painful display of desperation of women from all walks of life and backgrounds. These types of shows are created by men with wild fantasies that all women are eager to eat the crumbs from their sandwiches. (What beautiful young woman in a bikini picks up a strange guy 20 years older than her in a liquor store and brings him home?)
The Real Life Result
What these romantic Hollywood movies and series fail to show is the common result when a woman takes on the role of a chaser in a romantic encounter — she usually gets dumped soon after. In the movies the relationship blossoms into something meaningful, but that’s just not real life in about 95 percent of cases.
So when we look at some TV shows and movies it’s easy to see how a newer generation of women have adopted this idea that chasing desperately after men for attention, love and sex is the way to go. But if it was the way to go, why are so many young women of today stuck in empty “friends with benefits” relationships or being mistreated and disregarded by the men they are dating?
There comes a time when we have to re-evaluate the confusing messages that we’ve been taught by fictional movies since we were little girls and use our own better judgment.
Love Lynn
Lynn Gilliard is the author of a popular relationship guide entitled Let Him Chase YOU. Her latest book Sing While You’re Single offers advice to women who want to remain single for the time being while still maintaining their belief in the power and possibility of love.
