LA TIMES -- Dec 29 -- A Scottish university issued an alarming news release warning that romantic comedies "may actually damage your love life" by raising unrealistic romantic expectations and setting them up for a lifetime of disappointment. In the movies, new relationships are portrayed both as exciting, as most tend to be, and offering the intimacy that usually takes years to develop in real life. Past transgressions are easily forgiven. (You cheated on me with the mailman? Big deal! I still love you; let's live happily ever after!) And finally, older, more committed relationships are frequently portrayed in a negative light, with couples bickering and backbiting. More often than not, married couples are depicted as long-suffering. FULL ARTICLE @ LA TIMES
Mark Brooks: Internet dating sites can help the cause by educating users, resetting expectations and making better matches. There are a host of dating sites offering up personality and compatibility profiling tests now. They use a range of sciences to do so. eHarmony is led by a clinical psychologist, PerfectMatch by a sociologist, Chemistry by an anthropologist and even Plentyoffish.com has jumped on the bandwagon and has recently started having all new users go through a page of profiling questions. (Full Disclosure: POF is a client of Courtland Brooks)
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