I may be unpopular for saying this, but I kind of hate romantic comedies. If they are supposedly targeted to women, they somehow missed my demographic. Why are they so often inane dribble? Sure there are a few greats (“When Harry Met Sally,” “(500) Days of Summer”) that are not to be missed, but for the most part I wouldn’t be caught dead watching a Sandra Bullock flick unless the movie theater has the world’s best popcorn. That’s why a got a really good chuckle reading Asylum’s list of “7 Things Romantic Comedies Taught Us About Women.” It got me thinking. There must be some really important lessons for us ladies to learn as well, right? After the jump, the 10 oh-so-realistic things that rom-coms have taught us about men.

For much of my adolescence, I held up Say Anything and its endearing, boombox-wielding protagonist (Lloyd Dobler, sigh) as the pinnacle of what I wanted in relationships. Then I got older and thought about a guy I had just dumped standing outside of window at dawn and playing cheeseball music and suddenly, my dream guy seemed less like an ideal and more like a stalker.

Romantic comedies set unrealistic expectations of relationships and love, but if we look beyond the cinematic surface, what’s revealed are a host of crazy characters whose actions would never fly in real life—or would fly them right into a restraining order. Read more ...

Katherine Heigl graces InStyle‘s August cover, and in the issue, she talks about husband Josh Kelley and relationships in general. Of her upcoming film “The Ugly Truth,” Katherine said she she’s happy it’s rated R and didn’t want to do another PG-13 movie.

As much as I love a rom-com, one I will not be seeing is “The Ugly Truth.” For starters, despite winning me over slightly with “27 Dresses,” I loathe Katherine Heigl. And Gerard Butler gives me that icky, dirty feeling—the kind that gives me a slight dry heave. And while I never expect a rom-com to blow my mind, “The Ugly Truth” sounds about as cliche as they come and just the slightest bit familiar.

“I remember one stewardess on a plane saying, ‘What do you have coming out?’ “And I said, ‘Oh, I’m doing this romantic comedy.’ She said, ‘Another one!’ Part of me felt like saying, ‘Listen, bitchh.’ But the other part of me felt like, ‘You know what? You are absolutely f**king right. I need to change. I need to do other things.”

—Drew Barrymore [Sun U.K.]

A recent study found that fans of romantic comedies have unrealistic expectations of their life and relationships and often have trouble communicating with their partners. Rom-com devotees have an unrealistic idea that fate determines love, that the love-of-their-life should know what they want without them having to say it, and that sex with the right person will always be spectacular. We’re not surprised by the findings of this study, but we’d like to add a couple other fiction genres that we think have similar effects on life.

Starring Kate Hudson, Dane Cook, Jason Biggs, Alec Baldwin
While the film “My Best Friend’s Girl” could be easily classified as a typical rom-com judging by the misleading commercials and cheesy poster, its filth factor actually pushes it into the “gross humor” category. And that is what made me love it even more. I cracked up the whole time, but I will forewarn you—Dane Cook haters should not pay the $11 bucks to see this film.

Most romantic comedies are a little sap-tastic with few moments that are actually funny. Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist, starring Michael Cera and Kat Dennings, looks cute, and more importantly, funny. I’m sitting in a coffee shop with my headphones in, and I actually laughed out loud while watching it. Seriously, people are looking at me. It comes out October 3.