Stock Characters.

I've realised recently that girls in romantic comedies fit into 3 categories:

1) Leading lady who is conventionally beautiful and incredibly tall (think, Cameron Diaz). She can't get a man and is oh so sad about it. She does however get hit on by guys ALL the time. Hilarity ensues.

2) Leading Lady's best friend who is not conventionally pretty and destined to die alone because she is only 5 foot 5 inches (or is gawky and tall, think Joan Cusack) and doesn't have the same weight as a pack of sugar. She is incredibly funny and smart and helps make leading lady look even prettier by comparison. Now don't get me wrong, supporting character is not ugly, she is very warm and has a very non-threatening school-marm kind of style that doesn't involve high heeled shoes. Often times she ends up with an unconventionally attractive man (probably a dentist or something) and so ends her story.

3) Leading Lady's best friend who is while not conventionally attractive is still not as "desirable" as the leading lady but is married and has kids. Her life is in balance and she loves her husband (who is probably not built like Matthew McConaughey but more like Jim Belushi) but she either desperately wants to see her best friend with a man and all happy like she is or longs for the days when she didn't have to change diapers and got to eat day-old chinese food straight from the box.

Now obviously all three of these stock female characters exist because somewhere in a room with a big table fat white men sat around and crunched numbers and decided that these are the three basic types of women that the female audience can identify with.

Today this fact is pissing me off. I’m not a number 1 or a 2 or 3. I’m more of a 2-3 combo, the girl who sits around and listens to her perma-single friends talk all about how they went to some bar and made out with some guy and got all “jiggy” with it. They tell you about all the men that were fawning over them and how much fun they had but then quickly chase it with a “oh but I SO wish I was at home with a stable man, like you are with TFG”. I tell them about how jealous I am that I don’t get to slut myself up all the time and let dirty drunk men paw all over me and then the cycle ends, the glasses of wine are empty and we all go our separate ways.

Then ya know what happens? I go home, kick off my pretty-but-painful heels and sit back on the couch with TFG, snuggle in that wonderful place on his shoulder and watch TV. I like it there! I’m not up for looking for fun and excitement at bars, because lets face it, fun and excitement at bars leads more often to STD’s then it does a nice cosy night on the couch.

So to all the 23 year old girls who look at me and think “oh how it must suck to be settled” let me just tell ya,

It’s fantastic.