you hot. me love you.

King Kong Adrien Brody Naomi WattsYou know how it feels. You're the best looking guy in a crowded room. You spot the finest available specimen of womanhood; she pretends not to notice. You both smolder in silence, or perhaps you meet cute. You talk only once or twice, probably arguing about who's more stuck up, and then wham! Her parents take her to Bangladesh for an arranged marriage. Or Native Americans kidnap her and force her to hike through some really gorgeous scenery. Or a giant ape whisks her off to sleep in a bat cave. You know exactly what to do: risk everything to save her. Why? Because you're the two best looking people you know.

No? So why?

"Because I love her," you say, mouth clenched, eyes moist. But in a manly way.

I don't know if screenwriters ever get laid, but there's a preponderance of evidence that they've never been in love. I don't even recognize what they call falling in love. Where's the nausea? The imperviousness to all other forms of pain? The impossibility of relaxation? The hand-wringing over imaginary slights? The blue balls? The diligent face and leg shaving? The long, greedy, rapturous talks until dawn? The euphoria? The terror? The dropping of friendships? The urgent reading of their favorite books—books which you would never, ever otherwise pick up? The improved wardrobe? The mix tapes? The inability to think or talk about anything else? The beard burn? The recasting of deep-seated character flaws as adorable imperfections? The frustration with the limited bandwidth of the human ear, which keeps you from learning everything about this person at any acceptable rate? The glacial passing of time until you can see the person again? I could go on, but I think I've made my point: if you've ever been in love, how bloody hard is this to write?

Alas. Whenever I see love bloom on screen, here's the dialogue I hear in my head:

Male lead: "You hot. Me want put thing in you."

Female lead: "As I am contractually obligated to do so, I love you too."