You've Got a Wedding Planner Who's Coming to Dinner to Lose in 10 Days!: 50 Resolutions on Romantic Comedies

50 Resolutions I Promise to Make if I Ever Become a Guy in a Romantic Comedy Who is Not the Romantic Lead:

(Note: please remember that the other guys in a romantic comedy can include villinous, cheating, current-boyfriend, as well as sarcastic, good-natured best friend, to wise, elderly confidant):

1. I will not live in New York, or I will immediately move away from New York, thus decreasing to a large degree the possibility that I will be in any kind of romantic comedy.

2. I will not secretly be having an affair on the side which will in the end justify my female romantic lead girlfriend getting together with the male romantic lead.

3. I will not be so self-absorbed that I fail to notice that my female romantic lead girlfriend finds my jokes unfunny and/or my life's work uninteresting.

4. I will not abuse my female romantic lead girlfriend physically, verbally or emotionally, making my character absolutely one-dimensional so that I get whatever is coming to me, beginning with my losing my girl to the male romantic lead and potentially ending in my death.

5. I will not under any circumstances suggest crazy hijinks as a means of winning over the female romantic lead.

6. I will not under any circumstances suggest that the male romantic lead lie as a means of winning over the female romantic lead.

7. A no point will I smugly inform my male romantic lead best friend that I am an expert on women

8. If the male and female romantic leads seemingly loathe each other, I will step in and swiftly vacate the city/state/country with the female romantic lead. This will not guarantee that they will not eventually come together, but will greatly decrease the odds of them reconciling into a relationship.

9. I will point out to the female romantic lead that there is really no reason for her to be unlucky in love as she is a successful and beautiful professional who has a great job writing for a magazine/designing fashionable clothes/being cute and quirky in New York.

10. I will not annoyingly and continuously ask my male romantic lead best friend if "she has any friends to set me up with!" Invariably I will be set up with the plump but good natured female best friend (my counterpart) of the female romantic lead. The more I whine and complain, the more likely it is that I will be humorously set up with someone more awkward (a morbidly obese, man obsessed friend, or perhaps a flagrantly gay man or a cross dresser).

11. I will not suggest to my male romantic lead friend that it would be wise and prudent to spend untold amounts of resources to try and seek out that girl that he had a chance encounter with but whose phone number, address, or even name he failed to obtain on the first meeting. I know that these efforts in the real world would likely be for naught.

12. I will not kindly offer the female romantic lead a kindly smile and a kindly twinkly in my kindly eye with advice that sounds anything like "follow your heart . . ."

13. I will sagely offer advice like, "build a lasting relationship over a period of time. Learn what you can about this person. Pay attention to traits that could be signs of irresponsible, abusive or reckless behavior." I will recongize that the heart can be ridiculous and stupid sometimes.

14. If I am a black guy, I will not casually dispense phrases like, "Man, you be trippin'!" or "She was all up in yo' bidness!" just to show the audience that, yes I am black and yes the romantic lead is progressive enough to have black friends.

15. If I am a black guy, I will not offer my (white) male romantic lead best friend any advice that involves or even references "booty" of any kind.

16. I will not agree to any kind of scheme where the romantic male lead will believe that I am married to or dating my romantic female lead best friend.

17. If I did agree to the above mentioned scheme (thus violating resolution 17) I would not engage in hurriedly or angrily whispered conversations underneath dinner tables, in coat closets or behind napkins.

18. If the female romantic lead were about to catch me and my male romantic lead best friend in one of the many deceptive lies and half-truths that he has spun, I will have a plausible lie prepared. This will eliminate my awkward backpedaling such as "Um . . .! Uh . . . ! You see, the thing is . . . Um!" etc.

19. If I ever am coerced into doing a favor for my male romantic lead best friend so that he can woo the female romantic lead, I will not do anything degrading or unbecoming. Also I will not agree to any favor that is not an emergency in nature that involves me being woken in the middle of the night.

20. If I am present at the marriage of male romantic lead and female romantic lead, I will avoid the tossing of the bouquet, thus avoiding accidentally catching the bouquet, or being cornered by the unattractive, man-obsessed friend who did catch the bouquet in a cliched, unhumorous situation.

21. I will pay attention to possible secret, unexpressed admiration of attractive females around me so that, when expressed, I can act on them and keep the romantic female lead from meeting the male romantic lead, who was waiting in the wings to explain over the course of several weeks and many walks around the city at night why he was the right choice after all.

22. I will do my best to remain out of the rain while in the company of my girlfriend, the female romantic lead, as this is a great location for tearful, but happy, "Deep inside, I've always known that . . ." break up scenes.

23. If I am the father of the romantic female lead, I will not sit down with the romantic male lead and explain to her why "_______ is like her mother." That should have no bearing on the situation.

24. If I am the father of the romantic female lead, I will attempt to understand the culture and background of my daughter's romantic male lead love-interest. I will also expect him to respect and try to understand my own culture, even if eccentric. I will not attempt to suppress the cultural background of myself or my family, no matter what the humorous consequences might be.

25. I will not forcibly bring my romantic lead best friend to try speed-dating.

26. I will not allow my romantic lead best friend to become so dangerously intoxicated that they have the opportunity to pass out and/or vomit on anybody, much less the other romantic lead.

27. I will not suggest to my romantic lead best friend that in order to "win over" the other romantic lead, drastic, painful or questionably dangerous grooming techniques should be employed.

28. I will not insist that a traditional poker-night/bowling-night/boys-night/Monday night football with my male romantic lead best friend is so important that he would be justified in breaking off a burgeoning relationship with an attractive female romantic lead.

29. I will not allow my wife of many years to meddle and pry and drive apart the relationship of our romantic lead child.

30. If I do allow my wife to meddle and pry and almost drive apart the relationship of our romantic lead child (and violate number 30), I will not wait until the wedding night, or five minutes before the wedding to dramatically tell my wife to butt out and then tell my daughter "it's all right, sweetie. You marry whoever you want." or something to that effect.

31. I will allow my romantic lead child to marry the person of their choice and not insist that they marry a ". . . nice (Italian, Jewish, Greek etc.) boy/girl!" If I feel strongly about this, I will make kindly, loving suggestions. I will not speak the words, "You are dead to me!" or something equally irrational and melodramatic.

32. If I am slightly fat and clumsy, I will try to work on improving these traits: attempting to maintain a healthy lifestyle, take up a sport or hobby that will help me with my coordination and in general try not to be a bumbling idiot around romantic female lead or romantic female lead's equally quirky best friend.

33. I will avoid saying anything derogatory to or about the female romantic lead while wearing only a T-shirt, tank-top, or muscle shirt and/or while holding a can of liquid, a bottle of liquid, a screwdriver or a greasy rag, as these statements, are only made to assert my male pig-headishness, generally are made only to allow the male romantic lead to gallantly disagree, and make me appear narrow-minded and one-dimensional.

34. I will not loan my car or apartment to my friend so that he can impress his date. If I do provide a loan of some kind, I will make sure that my property is adequately insured so that if romantic hijinks ensue and my property is destroyed, I will be financially compensated.

35. I will not support my romantic male lead's desires or attempts to make a dramatic proclamation of love via some means of mass communication (television, PA system, megaphone in a traffic jam etc.).

36. I will not challenge the male romantic lead to a challenge of some kind to decide "once and for all" who will have the right to date/court/marry the female romantic lead. This applies whether the challenge is to the death, or to some kind of sports match, or some kind of card game.

37. I will not sabotage, in some oily, underhanded fashion, the event that would've been the male romantic lead's "big break," especially if the female romantic lead has been enthusiastically helping the male romantic lead with his crazy, pie-in-the-sky plans.

38. If I do sabotage the big event of the male romantic lead (and violate number 37), I will not causally walk up the to the female romantic lead after my sabotage has resulted in failure and say something to the effect of "Well, I guess we can see who the real loser is NOW!"

39. I will not publicly belittle the goofy, overweight, social misfits that are the best friends of the male romantic lead. Not only will this make me look bad in the eyes of the female romantic lead, but I will undoubtedly get my comeuppance from these same misfits later.

40. I will not jest at the incompatibility of the my male romantic lead best friend's sloppy, carefree, lackadaisical lifestyle and the uptight, schedule-driven, clean-freak lifestyle of the female romantic lead as these differences can be worked out with small and simple compromises.
41. I will not be the friend who exclusively makes jokes about becoming intimate with the female romantic lead each and every time I see the male romantic lead, thus allowing observers to assume that all men are pigs who obsessed with sex, except for the gallant male romantic lead, who likes the female romantic lead for who she is.

42. I will be impressed, surprised, and extremely skeptical if large groups of people spontaneously stop what they are doing at some bustling place of business (subway, airport, city street, traffic etc.) to applaud or to somehow aid the final climactic proclamation of love from the romantic leads.

43. If I suspect that I am involved in a romantic triangle with the female romantic lead and another male, I will seek out honest objective opinions of casual observers around me to determine whether or not I am more handsome, charming or witty than the other man, and thus determine conclusively if I am not the male romantic lead. If I am not, I will end my pursuit of the relationship with finality.

44. If I am a handsome, attractive celebrity-type, and I suspect that a down-home, sweet, young female romantic lead with whom I have causal contact has fallen for me, and I know that her true love is a somewhat ordinary but still terrific childhood friend/male romantic lead, I will instantly bow out of the scene so as not to prolong the male romantic lead's growing jealousy and frustration.

45. I will do my best to avoid either walking in on the female romantic lead in the shower or changing stall or being walked in on in the shower or changing stall by the female romantic lead as this is primarily the domain and task of the male romantic lead.

46. I will not tell my client the male romantic lead, that I as his ______ (lawyer, agent, manager etc.), I need something to happen before a certain time on a certain date or else there will be serious, dire consequences. This is because the resolution of these things happening before the certain time will undoubtedly result in the meeting and wooing of the female romantic lead.

47. If my romantic lead best friend is suffering because they are missing the other romantic lead after a fight they had or after the lies one or both of them told came to light, I will play an appropriately sappy romantic pop song to drive him/her toward a tearful and public reconciliation.

48. If I am the American/British roommate of the male romantic lead, and the female romantic lead is an uptight Brit/American (the opposite of myself), I will be daft and tosh (or wild and crazy) and engage in all sorts of zany, juvenile pranks that she will have to loosen up and live with. Also, my roommate will be forced to grow up.

49. I will restrict any and all sweeping generalizations and comparisons of women, any phrase that might begin with the words, "Women are like ____ (cars, sandwiches, beer, the stock market etc.).

50. If I suspect that I am a guy who is not the romantic lead in a romantic comedy, I will immediately purchase a hockymask and a chainsaw and make sure that it quickly becomes a horror film.

(Author's note: I just finished writing, in one eye-blearingly, early-morning sitting, the post you just read. I was inspired by a list I read from a Facebook group, called "100 Things I'd Do If I Ever Became An Evil Overlord." It's quite hilarious, and as simple math can tell you, it's twice as long. If I could have hammered out 100 romantic comedy resolutions in one night, believe me, I would have. But now the author needs to sleep and dream of every romantic comedy there ever was.)