It Only Happens in the Movies

Love isn't just a feeling. Love is a choice too. And you may not be able to help your feelings, but you are responsible for the choices you make about what to do with them.

The only love affair I needed to invest in right now was one with myself. Spend some time with me. Figuring out myself and why I picked the relationships I did. I was holding out my heart to me. Because I'd realised I was the only person who could give me a happily-ever-after.

No one ever tells you how much a heartbreak physically hurts. How it literally feels like you've been kicked down the stairs. How you can't swallow. How every muscle aches. How your heart lurches inside you like it's been poisoned. Nobody tells you that.

All I'm saying is, love changes over time. No person is ever perfect for another person

He smiled without his teeth. Small, shyly. I found myself smiling back. Like an impulse Then he ruined it by saying… "You're not like other girls, are you?" And I activated. Every single emotion I'd been squashing into my guts exploded like a burst appendix. I jumped off the bed and turned to him with a scowl I was sure he'd need permanent therapy to recover from. "Are you kidding me Harry?" "Woah Audrey. Hey, hey, hey. It's a compliment." I felt like screaming. "It's NOT a compliment. I threw my arms up, any motion to get rid of the rage pulsing through me. It's an insult to every single woman on this PLANET. Don't you DARE try and pull that shit on me. "What shit?!" Harry was stupid enough to ask. "I was saying something nice…" I shook my head so hard. "No, you were saying something clichéd and UNTRUE. I AM like other girls, Harry. Don't misinterpret my hatred of romance as some kooky, laid-back, manic pixie NONSENSE. I am DAMAGED. I am not CUTE. I am emotionally-fucking-traumatised right now, okay? I am screaming on the inside. I am too angry and messed up to contain all the stuff girls spend every day containing. That's why I seem different. That is NOT sexy.

What was the point? What is the point in love, and promises of it, when it can just jump from one person to another like that?

I smiled back at Ma because smiling is sometimes the only way to stop yourself crying.

But I was choosing to walk away from that. Because my heart... my heart was too fragile for someone who had chosen to break it.

(...) is the more you're trying to prove to people you're happy, the less happy you actually feel.

Why love is never like the movies

It was immediately obvious that Harry had hints of fuckboy about him.

(...) love isn't just a feeling. Love is a choice too. And you may no be able to help your feelings, but you are responsible for the choices you make about what to do with them.

Common dates in romance movies: Seats in a box at the opera or ballet Walking around a beautiful foreign city Night-time picnics in empty parks Finding some gorgeous abandoned house that the boy fills with candles Common dates in real life: Nando's...

I'd seen too much pain from love. I couldn't be with someone who had stung me sharply so early on. I wasn't strong enough. I wasn't.... romantic enough to work through it. Because what I'd learned was love isn't just a feeling. Love is a choice too.

Because the week the cinema closed? Well. That was the week we broke up. Ahh, come on. You knew this was coming.

You know that bit in the first Lord of the Rings film? Where Gandalf stands up to that fire demon on the bridge and yells, ‘YOU SHALL NOT PASS’? Well…” I paused, feeling so ashamed. “Essentially my vagina had a Gandalf standing at the entrance, and he thought Milo’s dick was a fire demon.

Smiling is sometimes the only way to stop yourself from crying.

I mean, if I want to kiss someone, it's like fighting an addiction not getting to kiss them.

Yes. I thought maybe our relationship was different. Maybe it was, for a little while. But I'm not giving you the opportunity to break my heart again, Harry. Maybe this time you've broken your own too, and maybe you won't do anything like this again. I'm not willing to take that chance though.

I've tried to hate you. I've tried to feel numb about you. I've tried to not even think about you at all. But I'm exhausted, Katie. I can't not love you, even after everything. I can't not feel anything for you. Every feeling I have, every inch of my heart - it's yours. It always has been...

Shit, I'm sorry. I'm so sorry," I yelped. Harry was rubbing his jaw. "What was that?" My keys were in my fingers, my back was to him. I fumbled with the lock. I had to get out of here. Oh my God, I'd tried to kiss him and ended up headbutting him. Like a freaking.. WWE wrestler. "I don't know what happend. I'm sorry. I have to go. Thanks for... everything...sorry." The door opend. I couldn't get through it quickly enough. What was wrong with me? Seriously, what was I doing? I HEADBUTTED HIM.

Hell is other people and what they do in the anonymous dark of the cinema.

His heart had changed channels, even though our show was still playing.

I felt my thoughts drift to that scene in The Notebook -- the one where Noah and Allie lie in the middle of the empty road. You could not be that romantic in England. I'd get frostbite of the bumhole if Harry and I lay on the ice tonight.

OH, AUDREY, AUDREY - WHEREFORE ART THOU, AUDREY? DENY MY SOMETHING AND REFUSE MY WHATEVER IT IS, BUT PLEASE LET ME IN BECAUSE I'M DYING FOR A PISS.

Or maybe there’s a type of laughter that only feels good with old friends.

Because if you can’t use emotional manipulation against the father who left you and doesn’t realize you quit the one thing that made you happy, then when can you?

Because they're full of unhelpful lies. Romance films ruin people’s real-life relationships. They offer this idea of love that isn’t sustainable in normal life. It’s dan…” I was about to say “dangerous” before I looked up to see literally the whole class listening in. My fists clenched. I reached for a lesser word. “It’s…pathetic?

Romance films are money-spinning cathedrals of love, wobbling in the foundations of unbelievable and damaging stereotypes.

I caught up with him and he slung an arm around me, casually, like he’d been allowed to put his arm around me for years.