Mike: Okay, so what if I don't want to give up on her?
Rob: You don't call.
Mike: But you said I don't call if I wanted to give up on her.
Rob: Right.
Mike: So I don't call either way?
Rob: Right.
Mike: So what's the difference?
Rob: There is no difference right now. See, Mike, the only difference between giving up and not giving up is if you take her back when she wants to come back. But you can't do anything to make her want to come back. In fact, you can only do stuff to make her not want to come back.
Mike: So the only difference is if I forget about her or just pretend to forget about her?
Rob: Right.
Mike: Well that sucks.
Rob: Yeah, it sucks.
Mike: So it's just like a retroactive decision, then? I mean I could, like, forget about her and then when she comes back make like I just pretended to forget about her?
Rob: Right. Although probably more likely the opposite.
Mike: What do you mean?
Rob: I mean at first you're going to pretend to forget about her, you'll not call her, I don't know, whatever... but then eventually, you really will forget about her.
Mike: Well what if she comes back first?
Rob: Mmmm... see, that's the thing, is somehow they know not to come back until you really forget.
Mike: There's the rub.
Rob: There's the rub.

Swingers is one of my favorite movies and has been since it first came our 10 years ago. Given the crap I've been going through this past month it felt like an appropriate movie to watch.

On it's surface I like Swingers because it's a funny, dialog based movie, and I'm a big fan of dialog. There are also some other random things, like their repeated inside jokes about movies (including blatantly stealing shots from Goodfellas and Reservoir Dogs.) And I like the flair of the well made, low budget movie.

But I think what really gets me about Swingers is that it's a personal story. Jogn Favreau, Vince Vaughn, and Ron Livingston were all friends in real life and were all trying to make it in Hollywood when they made this movie together. They all essentially play themselves (for those taking notes, this means Vince Vaughn usually just plays himself since he always plays the character he played here, but that's ok because he's fun to watch every time.) It was a personal story, told well, and personal stories have the ability to resonate with audiences.

There are really two main characters in Swingers, Favreau's Mike and Vaughn's Trent. Mike's the bumbling heartbroken guy trying to move on and have a real social life, while Trent is the slick player who everyone loves. It's funny, because every guy I know identifies with Mike instead of Trent. Sure, many of us like to think we're not as pathetic as Mike, especially when he does his message machine marathon with Nikki, but in the end we side with him.

I think this is because nobody actually feels as confident and slick as Trent appears to be. That's the great secret with guys, we know our job is to be confident and cool, but we rarely actually feel like that. Inside we all feel like Mike, even if we project Trent to the world. Of course, it could just be that the Trent's of the world are jerks and I'm not friends with them, so I don't know that they identify with Trent instead of Mike. But the rest of us feel like Mike most of the time but wish we could feel more like Trent. We envy Trent, but know we are not him. The good news is we also know that being like Mike is better in the long run, since Mike is capable of actually having a real relationship.

Ug, I'm glad February is over. When I look back on this year, I'm gonna wish I could have this month back to do someting useful with it. March should be better though.

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