Singles

Just saw "Single's" on my PC while suffering through this years summer heatwave.

This week has got to be the hottest of the month. If it weren't so damn hot, i'd run out and crack an egg on the pavement just to see how fast it cooks. My guess is ten minutes, but I can't last outside that long.

At my friend's--age 27--recommendation, I saw "Single's" as part of my (money pincher) book.

The movie that weaned my generation was Reality Bites, where we gobbled up all the apathy that oozed from our screens. Thoguh there are some similarities, Single's was missed mainly because none of us dated yet.

We were 12.

At this age (at least, in this country) dating consisted of holding hands for five minutes in front of the canteen and occassionaly chatting after school hours, while waiting for the bus. And that was for the ten percent wh did. The rest of us were pre-occupid were busy trying to meet graduation requirements and taking high school entrance exams.

In short, none of us saw Single's mainly because:

a) It was probably NC-17 and we wouldn't have been allowed in the theaters anyway.

b) Although we knew "spam" didn't come out of a guy, we were better off not knowing what sort of things happen in order to make "spam" come out

c) "Ang TV" and the "Gwapings" were a hit that year (think: Kids of Fame). I may not have been a fan, but a lot of 12 year old girls were. They should be denying all contact by now. As for the guys...they wouldn't have seen this on their own at 18, let alone 12.

d) With piano recitals, theme papers, penmanship sheets, sports activities, cheer and exams, exams, exams...Aladdin and Cutting Edge was pretty much the only thing we were up to seeing at that time.

So watching it now, 12 years later, was actually better. Scarier. And all the more damning.

Because now we are dating. Now some of us are actually sitting by the bathroom door pretending that little stick isn't blue. Now some of us have to schlepp to work, have work, do work because we always need the money. And now, we are inventing all sorts of "signals" and "criterias" that should alert us of a potential mate.

Because now we are "Single".

And in this country, 28 and under is not a good golf score, it's your clock counting down to that time when your relatives start harassing you on when you're going to get married.

A lot of my high school batchmates have already succeeded in beating the clock. Out of around 250 girls, an eighth are now married with children. Some ten percent are just married and another ten just have the children.

Then there's the rest of us who are committed in a relationship or in checking out "signs".

For For Bridget Fonda it was the guy who said "Bless you" after she sneezes , Kyra Sedgewick it was "the bequething of the parking space i.e. the garage door opener" and for Campbell Scott it was "the girl who unlocked his car door" for him.

I guess guys do it moment to moment, while girls start their lists at age six and just revise along the way.

Besides "the template"--which narrows down about a third of the worlds male population--my "signs" had always been fairly simple.

Likes physics. Trek fan. Digs sci-fi and fantasy (not just some poseur who likes LOTR and Matrix) Devout Catholic. Likes cars and bikes. Likes horses. Preferably a non-smoker. Etc, etc, etc.

My cosmic guy sign had always been him suddenly making a quote of whichever book I was currently reading or blurting out the lines from whatever show I was currently obsessed in. (I'm not very creative when it comes to myself. I do better with books)

Add that to a whole soup of "Nice, tall man, sweet and great with kids." and you have the recipe for Mr. Impossible. Even if he came in a No Bake mix, I don't think I could even fathom what exactly it was that made for the suitable match.

Which is why "Singles", a seemingly harmelss movie from the now hip Cameron Crowe, scares the shit out of me.

Not only does it present the fact that "not knowing" means "not knowing which one of the five billion men out there you will end up with", but that like everyone, you really have no idea of what you need in a guy. On what complements. It's all fate, because everything there is in the blindside of the Johari Window.

Not to mention seeing those sundresses. Granny dresses. Whatever monstrosities they were. I forgot the early nineties were also riddled with fashion no-no's. Neon colors and those floral print mini dresses that you pear up with shin length tights and docmartens...and the poofy bangs with the chunky earrings.

It's a good thing we wore uniforms. Heck, thank God for grunge, the only versatile wardrobe. You can go on from generation to generation, but grunge just looks the same: wrinkled and chunky.

I keep thinking of what movie may be considered a representation of my generation. The Y or XX or whichever it is. I keep forgetting. During the `80s it was any movie that had the Brat Pack (Breakfast Club, anyone?) the nineties it was Singles and Reality Bites. Anything later than that it's Dawson's Creek and a bunch of CGI characters.

Perhaps the Scary Movies series or Cruel Intentions (hopefully not American Pie)

As for the clothes...I don't think we're in any danger of any fashion faux pas just yet. Besides Paris Hilton et al, I don't see anything that my kids would laugh at ten years later. It's all just t-shirts and jeans.

And the fact that right now, all we have are...period films.