Once you’ve navigated the immediate aftermath of a breakup and survived the four stages of breakup grief there will be a time when a glimmer of hope appears.
No matter how your relationship ended, at some point you will move to a milestone moment where you allow the male race as a whole to achieve some redemption in your eyes.
At this point, don’t try googling men and redemption, as I can tell you from personal experience that you’ll be swamped with religious references. Mysteriously thereafter your facebook will start sending you sponsored suggestions that you take up learning Biblical Hebrew. Then you have a lot of frivolous googling of cake, vodka and cats-doing-cute-things to get your newsfeed back to normal.
Saving you ALL that, there is a simple way to have your faith in men restored and it comes the form of something we have spent a lifetime digesting easily.
Not carbs or sauv blanc, but chick flicks.
Before you can be prescribed a specific chick flick to re-warm your heart to the male race in general, you need to undertake a self-assessment of how catastrophically it was broken. Take a moment to see where you are on the spectrum of breakup catastrophe
The Demi and Bruce, “yes we’ve split but it’s terribly amicable for the sake of the kiddies” (hang on, one of those young ones isn’t one of the kiddies)
The somewhat dignified, no-fault, never commented-upon (albeit bound by the Alcatraz of prenups and the threatened wrath of a thousand Scientologists) split of Nicole and Tom.
Katy being advised BY TEXT that Russell Brand was divorcing her and only being slightly mollified by watching him descend into an incredibly unwashed phase characterised by many pairs of bad harem pants.
Maria Shriver’s marriage arrmageddon of finding out your husband has sired a child with the help. (although how she didn’t twig to who this kid’s babydaddy might have been is beyond me)
Having rated the level of damage you have sustained (and hey, do you like how fast we diagnosed this? No need to fund the swimming pool of your therapist or wear down your friends lamenting about how badly you were treated) choose from the following chick flicks as the healing salve to your open wounds. They are conveniently sequenced from something that is like a little Barbie-print band-aid through to the equivalent of major sutures of a kind not seen since you last had that chardonnay-induced crash through the sliding glass door.
One – Grease
Here the male redemption is confined to a mere change of image, from drag racing, leather-clad tough guy to track star wearing a Letterman jacket. He wins her heart through a simple wardrobe transformation to being one of her kind, proving definitively that you can change a man. The only downside is that she switched as well and falsely put forth a view that it was OK to wear leggings as pants, a myth that is still perpetuated today.
Two – Pretty Woman
Here Richard Gere – who just by turning up in a movie can repair a woman’s view of the entire male race – shows the depth of character to overlook Julia Robert’s character’s rather dubious choice of occupation and goes on to then shower her with gifts and defend her against his dodgy mates.
Three – the Notebook
Once you get beyond the sound of your own convulsive sobbing, the beauty of a man standing by you even though, due to dementia, you have no clue that he’s doing so, will warm your heart, even if you’ve been treated in a way that makes Maria Shriver’s experience look tame.
Four – PS I Love You.
Sends his love from beyond the grave. Enough said. If you are looking for something more tangible than a note, say in the form of some clay-based sculptural work, then Ghost will do the trick.
Five – Thor
I know, unlikely choice right? But stay with me here. This guy TRAVERSES THE UNIVERSE to find his lost love Jane. If the combination of Hemsworth biceps and the phrase ‘I gave you my word I would return’ (notwithstanding it takes him till the sequel to do so) doesn’t give you chills, then I can’t help you.
In which case continue seeking a path to forgiving all men. Just don’t use the word redemption in google, else next time you log on to facebook, you’ll have friend requests from one of these two.
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