Choosing to Be Lonely Over a Bad Relationship is Radical Self-Respect

I caught the movie The Way Way Back this weekend and enjoyed it. It’s one of those art-house films that stands up and makes you wish some of these movies had larger marketing budgets.

The film is really about a kid’s coming of age, his realization that life and love aren’t perfect, and his subtle encouragement to his mom to not settle.

That theme gives this movie the feel of an anti-love story. Not to say it’s against love, but it’s about one of those tough relationships in which needy people pair up and try to make dysfunction work. That’s often a beautiful story unless one of the people is breaking the rules. And in this movie one of them is.

If you’ve ever found yourself in a situation where you feel like you’re settling, and by settling I mean looking the other way while secretly wondering if you deserve somebody who can actually be faithful or have respect for you, you might find some comfort in this film. Comfort and direction.

I don’t like the word settling as much as I like the word commitment. I’d never recommend to anybody that they settle.

When we commit to somebody, through thick and thin, we’re giving them the gift of our undivided, safe and trusting love, and the price for that is the same in return. If both parties aren’t fully committed, the couple isn’t compatible.

I liked this movie. It’s subtle and simple and at times, fun. But in our age of dysfunctional families and confusion about the nature of love, it has a thoughtful message: Committed people deserve committed people and really aren’t compatible with anybody else.

Anyway, I hope you get to see it.

If you’ve already seen it, what’d you think?

Choosing to Be Lonely Over a Bad Relationship is Radical Self-Respect is a post from: Storyline Blog