I’ve written before how I avoided seeing Closer with my girlfriend to preserve the relationship. After seeing the movie alone more than a year later, I decided I was right. That movie, while compelling and haunting, left me feeling depressed and dirty. While channel surfing last night, I rediscovered long-buried thoughts that might actually prove my hypothesis.
I came across a Mad About You marathon on Nick at Nite. I have to admit, I watched that show back in the day. I don’t even know why – because I was never a fan of Paul Reiser, Helen Hunt has always annoyed me (and sometimes repulsed me), the supporting characters were ugly and clingy, and let’s face it, it was pretty much a chick show. So why the hell did I watch it? It probably had a strong lead-in on NBC’s daunting 1990s Must-See TV lineup, not to mention sparse competition.
Anyway, last night I ended up watching the pilot episode and the clever cross-over episode guest staring Michael Richards as Kramer. While watching, I drifted off to a time almost exactly 10 years earlier when I used to watch the show with my girlfriend. The MAY storyline in the spring of 1996 was that Paul Buchman was cheating on Jamie or was thinking about cheating on her because she kissed a coworker. This was material which I now deem inappropriate for a couple to watch together, yet we watched it.
We were already on shaky footing due to a couple of breakups, our latest re-start had occured under dubious conditions, and we were just trying to get through a rough period and hopefully make it through to the other side. She was probably trying harder than I to make things work and (cliche warning) if I knew then what I know now, things would have turned out differently. Looking back, it seems so simple what a wiser course of action would have been. (devil’s advocate warning) Then again, what happened was meant to happen because we acted age-appropriately.
Even though we watched that several-episode-long story arc of Paul and Jamie’s marital problems and vowed that nothing like that would ever happen to us, we broke up less than a month later. The power of suggestion is a mighty thing and I’m not saying that a TV dramedy directly led to the end of my first real relationship. I’m just saying that these days, I’m all about remaining positive, upbeat, and cheery.
