So, how do you lose a guy in just less than two weeks? Is it possible? Well, from my experience, 10 days is long enough. I swear. Call me a liar, but WHATEVER. You're not me, so you don't know the real story. Ha-ha. Anyway, as I was saying, how do you lose a guy in just ten days? My super favorite movie, which I consider classic, give us tips on how to do it.
In the movie “How to Lose a Guy in Ten Days”, there was this certain girl named Andie Anderson. She works as a writer in Composure magazine and widely know as the how-to-girl. Aside from doing that, she likes to write about issues—world issues to be exact. However, her boss disapproves the whole idea. She wants her to write about clothes, shoes and whatever “girly” things that are hip and cool. Then, there was this time that they had a staff meeting for their next issue. During that time, she has a friend who just got out of a relationship. Just then, she had a brilliant idea. She shared it with her co-workers. Her idea was what does it take make a guy leave you. It's like a experimental article where she tries to the most needy, clingy and annoying little girlfriend that would blow the guy's mind and leaves the girl. Her boss liked the idea and titled it “How To Lose A Guy In Ten Days”. The boss told Andie that she could write anything she wants if she makes this article a big hit. Andie thought that this might be the biggest break she'll have. She then meets Benjamin Barry, who works in the advertising, who happens to be in a bet with his colleagues—and the price at stake was a very big client. He has to make a girl fall madly in love with him and bring her to a party which their company will be sponsoring. To make this super duper long story short, they did what they have to do, they fell in love with each other, found their secret task, broke up, car chase, and then they got back together—typical love story.
Last week, we were talking about Expectancy Violation Theory (EVT). This was proposed by Judee Burgoon. This theory talks about how an expectation can be destroyed and have negative effects or the other way around. EVT's core concepts are: expectancy, violation valence, and communicator reward valence. What I would like to do is to connect the core concepts using the movie “How to Lose a Guy in Ten Days”.
Expectancy. Burgoon and her colleagues defines this core concept as something that is predicted to occur than desired (Griffin, p88). In others, its planned out already. In the film, Andie expected that Ben would leave her if she would be clingy, whiny and needy. She tried all the “don't”'s in a relationship because she expected that this would turn off the guy. On the other hand, Ben's plan was the other way around. His goal was to make Andie fell in love with him and he'd do whatever it takes. So he tries to be more understanding, loving, caring, and showing her a lot of sweet gestures. He knows that these things make a woman fall for any man.
Violation Valence. From the word violation, we picture something that crossed the border or not abiding in rules. Valence, is usually used in Chemistry to have a stable element. If we combine these two words, Judee Burgoon defines it as something positive or negative value we place on a specific unexpected behavior, regardless who does it (Griffin, p89). Going back to the movie, Andie's action towards made Ben stressed and confused that it came to a point that he broke up with her. Since Andie's goal was to irritate Ben, his response was positive to what she was expecting to happen. On Ben's case, he wanted to make Andie fall for him so he did the sweetest thing a woman want from a man. But Ben really did not know if Andie liked him for real. Yet, the way she acts with him was a sign of something positive. She laughs with his jokes and tried to mingled with his family when they visited them. So sum it all, they reacted positively with what the other person was expecting.
Communicator Reward Valence. This last core concept is labeled by Burgoon as the results of our mental audit of likely gains or losses. CRV, is the sum of the positive and negative attributes that the person brings to the encounter plus the potential he or she has to reward or punish in the future (Griffin, p91). So it's like if your impression of the person is positive, then whatever he/she does to you it could still have a positive outcome. But if you don't like that person, even he/she tried to be nice, you'd still think it's fake. Since Ben wanted Andie badly, even she tries to blow his mind off, he tries to understand and forget about it. In Andie's case, she didn't like Ben—before. But as they got to know each other they Andie liked him and she fell for him.
We all have expectations when we met other people. It may be too high that the person we expect to do something might not get it or violate it. So if we like the person, we adjust our standards and lower it for them until both parties would be comfortable. But if we don't?? HA! We interpret this a downfall or a weakness and it's impression on us would be negative. As a result, a failed relationship. There you have it, you just lost him.
“You can't lose something, that you never have.”
