In 2005 a romantic comedy titled ‘A Lot Like Love’ was released, starring Ashton Kutcher and Amanda Peet.
That movie was awarded just a shade over 3 stars, a whopping 41% on Rotten Tomatoes, and (at the age of 15) it managed to frame how I viewed love forever.
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A Lot Like Love, like most movies, is centered around a boy and a girl.
The boy, Oliver (Ashton Kutcher), was your typical kid with his head in the clouds. Approaching adulthood during the advent of the internet, Oliver had dreams of making big as one of the first internet entrepreneurs—selling diapers online.
The girl, Emily (Amanda Peet), was the edgy type of girl with an attitude who would rather a moment be memorable than lasting. Some might view her as lost, and maybe she was, or maybe she was just finding her way through life.
The movie kicks off with the two, as strangers, boarding the same flight to New York City. Shortly after being airborne the two then find themselves, still as strangers, fucking in the bathroom.
After landing Oliver finds Emily at the baggage claim, begins to introduce himself, and is greeted by one of my favorite quotes and a line that becomes reoccurring throughout the movie:
“Don’t. You’ll ruin it.”
From there the movie covers a series of 7 years, the two of them stumbling across each other a handful of times, taking their relationship from one of lust, to friendship, then regret, and finally—romance.
After New York, they meet up again 5 years later in San Francisco on New Year’s Eve. Emily, freshly dumped by her hotshot boyfriend, in a Hail Mary attempt to not spent New Years alone, finds Oliver’s number in an old book and asks to catch up. He agrees.
A year after that they meet again. This time Oliver, freshly dumped by his needy girlfriend, reaches out in an attempt to get his mind off his ex. He does a bad job. But Emily, not initially, but eventually, slaps him out of it.
At one point, during the post Oliver-breakup portion of the story, Emily asks him if he loved his previous girlfriend.
“I thought I did. If it wasn’t love, it was a lot like it.” he says, “But now I don’t know, it sounds stupid when I say it out loud.”
To which Emily responds in a cheesy, but true manner, “Honestly, if you’re not willing to sound stupid, you don’t deserve to be in love.”
Now, at this point, I’m sorta just recapping the movie and not explaining the impact, but hang with me.
From here, the story pits Oliver against the decision of choosing Emily or his career. He picks his career. And in the light of that, Emily eventually winds up with another man.
They do eventually end up together, but that’s not the point.
From the first viewing of this movie, and ever since, this exact type of story has always been my favorite. And like the story, this exact type of love has always been my favorite too.
Oliver and Emily were not a perfect fit. In all reality, they were anything but. In spite of that, they consistently found themselves falling into (and usually out of) each other’s arms—never by choice, but rather as if they had no choice at all.
They were faced with the challenge of distance, time, and (of course) opposing relationships. Yet, when things were the hardest, with the other was where they felt the safest.
Which is maybe the best way I can define how love should feel:
Hard, yet safe.
Hard enough to foster growth, but safe enough to ensure that growth is never entirely snuffed out.
For a long time I wondered if my idea of love was warped by this movie. Which would make a lot of sense—watching it in the midst of puberty and my early teenage years. But after some thinking, I’ve decided it was less a case of the movie providing me a definition and more along the lines of me looking at it, thinking, and deciding “oh, that’s the definition.”
Now, the tricky aspect of defining love is that it’s so abstract that it’s nearly impossible to articulate. And this is only made more difficult by the reality that we have all felt it.
Or, if not love, something a lot like it.
It’s one of those things you might not know the words for, but you’ll know it when you feel it and you’ll love it when you do.
Which is maybe why I found a movie, rather than any single definition, to so accurately define how I view love. Because a story was able to do what words could not.
Life is a balancing act, it and everything in it follow a set of rules that remain absolute. To live a fulfilling life (which is different than a happy life) one must be able to dip one toe in chaos while leaving the other within a sense of structure.
Love is a lot like this.
The key to love doesn’t lie within a perfect, problem-free relationship, it lies within the person who isn’t the perfect fit.
It lies within the person who pushes you to grow and succeed, even at the cost of your relationship.
It lies within the person who allows you to fail, but never see you any differently.
And it lies within the person who makes you want to be that type of person for them too.
I typically try not to write too much about love and relationships, even though it’s something I have strong opinions about, for fear of it coming across cheesy or stupid.
But, you know, if you’re not willing to sound stupid, maybe you don’t deserve to be in love.
So, while my definition may not be exactly what love is, it’s something a lot like it.