The Power of Need

So, I've decided.  There are very few things I need in this world.  I've got a roof over my head, a great job, a full fridge, and a couple of pennies left in my bank account at the end of the month.

Like many other single girls out there in the dating world, I don't need someone to take care of me, but I'd like to find love.  It's a pretty average, ordinary story.

But, recently, I've decided that I must be a freak.  Because, while I'd love to be loved, I need to be needed.  It's not something I want.  It's something I need, like my houseplants need sunlight.  Like a swimmer needs air.

I've never been the girl who looked for the flawed guy so I could try to fix him.  I've always believed in taking people for who they are, flaws and all.  When my ex-mother in law lectured me about "making" her son act more responsibly, I'd say to her, "It was your job to raise him.  It's my job to put up with him."

On my drive home tonight, I decided that I'm not such a freak after all.  Hollywood has made quite a pretty penny on the power of need.  Need an example?

Sleepless in Seattle.  It goes like this.  Meg Ryan is a cute, successful, if impossibly thick haired newspaper writer.  While listening to a radio show, she learns of the plight of Tom Hanks, a widower with a young son who can't face life without his beautiful, perfect, dead wife.

Tom Hanks is a mess.  He's doing the best he can with his kid, but he's a man walking around with a big hole in his metaphysical heart.  It's very sad.  And Meg Ryan falls in love, sight unseen.

Now, the movie tries to make you think that Meg Ryan falls in love with Tom Hanks because he's capable of such a deep love.  He remembers the way his wife peeled an apple in one long curl, and Meg Ryan does the same thing.  Clearly, in Hollywoodland, this means they're MFEA.

Meanwhile, Meg Ryan has a fiancee.  The nerdy, but still cute Bill Pullman.

Now, Bill's got some flaws.  He tells bad jokes.  He uses one of those weird sleep apnea contraptions.   He's not perfect.

But, Bill Pullman could have been Brad Pitt.  It wouldn't have mattered.  Tom Hanks and his son needed Meg Ryan.  Bill Pullman was going to pull through just fine without her.

Meg Ryan needs to be needed, too.  So, she chooses the messed-up-guy-with-a-kid over the stable-but-slightly-odd Bill Pullman.  Who could blame her?

Maybe I'm not such a freak after all?