I'm not one to do movie reviews, and frankly, this isn't really a movie review at all. It's more like a reflection in the sense that "A Complete History of my Sexual Failures" got me thinking about my past relationships. I found it interesting that at the end of the movie, the narrator/failure/guy behind and sometimes in front of the camera found someone that he enjoyed spending time with. That, without making this movie, he would never had been running around in the street with high doses of Viagra coursing through his...well, let's just not go there...and he would have never met his newest girlfriend. Without rehashing his past failed relationships (and those numbers were astronomical) he would not have met someone so compatible. He's an independent filmmaker, and she's a journalist. I didn't expect this movie to get me thinking...in all honesty, I just imagined it would be an awkward 1.5 hrs of me on the couch embarrassed for the poor guy.
In reality, it had its super awkward moments (like the S&M part...so not into that). And it had its moments where I wanted to run and hide for the poor girls that had to sit in front of the camera and tell this guy about what was wrong with him. But it also got me thinking about what my past relationships would say about me. I suppose the entire purpose of dating other people is selecting potential long-term partners. But as we progress through the process, do we evolve in some way? By the looks of this movie, it seems quite easy to get stuck in a rut. Yet, it was a self-induced rut. Instead of taking the time to process why his longest relationship with someone he truly loved ended, he just threw himself into many relationships that were meaningless to him. He continued to try to move on without really moving on.
I think if there's anything that I have walked away with, it's an understanding that in order to move on to a better relationship, you have to find some way to come to terms with your past. I'm not sure I can say the best way to do this, and I'm not saying that we need to all go out and make movies of awkward interviews with people we've broken up with. I'm also not saying that I'm going to air my own, personal, dirty laundry here for the world to see. But, I think, perhaps, in the sanctity of my own private journal, I might actually take the time to figure out just what it is that I have been stuck on the past couple years. I think that was ultimately what "A Complete History of my Sexual Failures" amounted to. This movie was a public display of this guy's personal coming to terms with why he seemed to be dating the same person over and over with the same outcome of being dumped. It wasn't until he realized that he was still in love with his longest girlfriend that he could process why no other girl seemed to work for him. And thanks to his mother, he realized that this girl would never have been compatible with him. She wanted different things than he did (ie. kids and a family), and at the time when they were dating, they weren't on the same page.
I'm not entirely sure where I'm going with this. It's most likely the fact that I haven't really watched a movie in a while that made me think quite as much as this one. Maybe I'm reaching a point right now where I can take the time to rehash my own life. Maybe it's because I can feel how close I am to the edge of something new. Perhaps it's the fact that sometimes I feel like I've been sliding backwards down a slippery slope, and I'm not entirely sure my feet will catch hold and allow me to move forward again. Perhaps it's more that I wish I were at the end of my movie, sometimes, and that I had the ability to look back and see how all my past failures have made it possible for one true beautiful, loving friendship to form. Or perhaps even to see that friendship has already started, and that right now, I can't see it for what it is. If only I had the ability to look into the future and see what it holds in the partner department. All I can do is sit back and enjoy the leg of the journey I'm on right now, and hope that I will one day know what it's like to be with someone who truly understands me and I him.
