the one with players

a moment of Sonder

As I type this, I’m currently watching a movie titled ‘Players’. Its a comedy-esque type thing and so far, I’m having fun.

I’m also having a lot of thoughts.

Normally, I’m not a movie person, but I’m at work and I’m bored and I decided to take a look at the few movies I put in my flash drive during my last exam season (nothing screams bad decisions quite like academic urgency).

I picked this movie cause I recognized a lot of the cast while skimming through. Gina Rodriguez (from Jane the Virgin), Liza Koshy, Tom Ellis (from Lucifer) and Joel Courtney (from Kissing Booth). I mean I just wanted to know what project they all worked on, and if all failed, I would just spend the entire movie fawning over Tom Ellis because that man is FINE and with a very sexy accent.

One of my favourite things about movies is the fact that it throws you into another reality. It shows you the examples of experiences someone could have. It has a name. Sonder.

So the movie opens with four friends, three guys and one girl, at the bar, discussing what trick, or as they call it, play, for one of the guys to use to take home a girl for a one-night-stand.

That was my first sonder moment. People in this world actually want meaningless sex. No feelings involved. Just a random one-night intrusion into your body and you’re free to go. I wondered if I would like that. If I would be okay with that.

Being out of school, especially a school as gridlocked as mine, made me realize people actually do be wild outside. Like I’ve never been clubbing or to a bar or a rave. I just stay on my bed and live vicariously through the internet while simultaneously realizing that I’m actually old enough to be these people. I could actually go if I want to.

But do I want to?

Putting that thought aside, I continued the movie. Tom Ellis, playing Nick, entered, the girl, named Mack, wants to go home with him. She succeeds, they have sex, she leaves his place feeling empty. Ends up telling her friends that she wants more with this guy. A relationship.

In my mind I’m like Okay, something normal. She has accepted this, she’s gonna ask this guy out.

I’m wondering what the rest of the movie will be about when her and her three friends start plotting a play to get her in a relationship with him. They stalk him, physically and online so she could get his routines, like and dislikes then they plot minor collisions between Nick and Mack to make her look good.

I’m screaming.

Is the fear of rejection actually that bad?

So here I am, my second moment of sonder because there’s no way, people have thought processes like this. There’s no way you want to build a relationship when already know everything about your partner as you enter it. There’s no way you want to build a relationship, when you lied about your initial likes and dislikes and moulded it to fit his, so you’ll have more in common.

I believe a relationship is both of you getting to know each other. I believe its a beautiful thing. The compromises. The trying new things because of someone else. Or maybe its just me. Maybe some people have been burned too much by love to want to try again. I mean you can’t continue drinking tea if your tongue is already burnt.

So while they’re plotting, I’m already shipping her with one of the guys who has been a close friend of hers for years. His name is Adam. I don’t think they’ll end up together. Adam has a date. They both feel and look platonic. My inner romantic heart just has a vibe. I mean the only thing better than enemies to lover is best friends to lovers when none of them pine and the lovers part just literally slaps them in the face. Like imagine if Lee and Elle in Kissing Booth just realized that they liked each other after being platonic the entire movie?

I continue my movie.

It works. In her sabotaging a third date between Nick and some doctor, Mack secures herself a date. They start seeing each other. At the end of one of their dates, Mack wants to invite Nick to her apartment, He makes an excuse, kisses her, tells her she’s fun and then dips.

Anywho, my weird intuition is right. She has a double date with Adam and his new girlfriend and her and Adam are particularly chummy with all the inside jokes, so much that Nick and Adam’s date notices. Then Adam slips on a lie she’d made, they cover it up and she’s orders a food she doesn’t like, while talking about an art collection she doesn’t care about, because they’re Nick’s favourites.

As the movie is going on, we’re seeing slight jealousy from Adam. Its thinly veiled and subtle but as the love connoisseur I am, I can spot it. Meanwhile, Adam’s date is on board with me and noting the vibe between Adam and Mack. Mack is focusing on her ‘relationship’.

The weird thing is Nick and Mack don’t even match. He is a sips-tea-with-his-pinky-out person, while she is a chugs-bear-at-one-go person, but she’s too preoccupied with dating an adult, that the fact that their incompatible means nothing to her.

It isn’t until Adam points it to her in the middle of a huge fight they have that she realizes it. He tells her that she has lost her essence and she gets pissed but at the end of the night she realizes it and breaks up with Nick, but Adam isn’t talking to her still.

I’m watching this start and stop, and I would be pleased to inform you all:

I WAS SO FUCKING RIGHT.

My love radar is never wrong. Maybe except the fact that Adam has been in love with her for about ten years. He hid it well though. I mean I got the vibes from him but I honestly thought it was just developing and not stifled.

We’re around the end of the movie now. Where she makes up with Adam. Curious to see how it would end.

That was the cutest ending I have ever seen. She was yapping, he let her finish (very important) and then he asked if he could kiss her after all her long talk. Ugghhhhhh.

Now my favourite thing about this film: THE FRIEND GROUP

You know when you spot a friend group in the wild and you just know that they are tight-knit and ride-or-die? That’s the friend group. And they look like they have so much fun too.

Like the fact they all went along with her schemes, all took a role in stalking Nick. Like they’re the type that you’ll call in the middle of the night and they’re there. You’ll say drive, they’ll say how far.

All in all, I really enjoyed the movie. It was cute.

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I have announcements for tomorrow.

But one of them is….

(drumroll please)

I’m killing the Friends’ themed titles (shocking gasps)

I don’t know how the writers did it for ten seasons. Like I will have something really creative to name the post but then I will have to scrap it, because it doesn’t fit the theme I created. So come tomorrow, the ‘the one’s’ will be no more.

This is the last post with that name.

Happy New Year’s Eve (from a corporate girlie at her desk at work)