Happy Endings

When I sat down this morning, I had intentions of writing a blog about my extreme disappointment with several family members and a few friends and their overly religious anti-gay marriage posts yesterday. Their ignorance of science, bigotry, and inability to realize that this is a state issue and not a religious one really made me sad. But the truth is, most of the people I love and who actually take the time to read this are truly remarkable, well-informed, and tolerant people so I won't waste your time with one more ranting argument in favor of equality because you already know.
I had a change of direction in the blog-brain while I was finishing up the last episode of Dollhouse over lunch. This is the first time I've watched it since it first aired and I forgot just how much I loved this show. What it got me thinking about was happy endings. My mom and I had a conversation many years ago about how she feels that women today have a skewed reality of how relationships are and idealize love based off of the relationships we view in TV and movies. She thinks it leaves them constantly disappointed and searching for things that do not exist. I couldn't disagree more. 
I am a hopeless romantic. My movie collection is way over half full of "chick flicks" and probably makes any male passing within a five block radius of my apartment inexplicably nauseous. I'm constantly looking for that perfect date, the dramatic movie climax where you make the realization that you're in love with someone, the fairy tale happy ending. And I don't think I'm alone and I don't really think it's an epidemic that exists only in the female population. Most importantly, though, I don't think it's too much to ask. 
The reason we love romance in the movies so much is because it works out the way it's supposed to. Men treat women with respect and, when they don't, they either end up alone or realize their mistake and make up for it. No one ever realizes too late that the person they let go is the person they were supposed to be with all along. There are grand gestures and couples that are willing to make the necessary sacrifices that make relationships work. They'd rather spend time with their significant other than anyone else and they stand up for them to their friends. They aren't afraid to say "I love you". 
Those are all things we desperately long for, even those of us who don't believe in "sappy love" or that real love even can exist. We want it and we make idiots of ourselves in search of it. The connection that makes sense and lasts through pain and joy, loss and discovery, hard times and easy ones. It's right to look for that perfectly timed first kiss underneath the fireworks, it's right to be sad when someone tells you they should have gotten you when they had the chance after it's too late, it's okay to miss someone even years after they left, and it's not pathetic to hope for that grand gesture to win you back. It's not too much to ask for. So every time Buffy tells Spike she loves him or Julia Stiles shows up at the end of Down to You or when Barney proposes to Robin, I cry and I wait for someone else to realize that giving yourself over to another person and being a sappy romantic and believing in love isn't such a terrible thing.