Wherein Bry's life is ripped from the headlines of...sitcoms.

I've been watching How I Met Your Mother a lot over the past few weeks. From episode 1 through to Monday night's season premier. And much like when I watched Seinfeld and Friends, I'm starting to see a lot of parallels between the plot lines of the show and my life.

This makes sense because each of these shows are about 20/30/40 something singles living in the city. Not original material as far as story lines, but in funny in their delivery. So finding commonality with a sitcom designed to entertain and catch the attention of the 18-42 crowd is like saying "Hey, I have a vagina."

Until last night, I was bemused by this. Not now.

In Season 4, Ted makes Stella watch his favorite movie, Star Wars. Stella says she loves it, but later admits to Marshall that she hated it, but will always pretend she loves it so that Ted is happy.

Okay. I hate Star Wars. Hate it. I have seen it before. Once. In a theater with my speech & debate team (hold your laughter) in high school when the 20th anniversary rolled around (hold your old person jokes). We were in Billings (I think) at a match and one of my friends (AMM) dressed up like Leia. I dressed up like Bry. There are no Bry's in Star Wars.

This will come as no surprise to those of you who know my dislike of science fiction.

Last night at dinner, the subject of Star Wars came up. I'm not sure how. CJ has an innate ability to direct things away from the topic at hand ("Have you been paying attention to the Christine O'Donnell race?") to the nerdy ("I got a copy of a Star Wars Lego game for $1 at a garage sale.") and while, to be fair, he is a great conversationalist, but, I don't understand or like video games, especially video games about movies I also hate.

I'm pretty sure he could read this in my face.

"See, my friend told me not to talk about Star Wars on dates. I'm sorry."

"No, that's okay, I'm pretty sure I shouldn't talk about Pride and Prejudice on a date and we already did that."

"Have you seen Star Wars?"

"Once." I recap the story of the exhausting trip to the theater (I'm pretty sure I slept through most of it).

So yadda, yadda, yadda, we go back to his place.

And watch Star Wars.

CJ is convinced that I will love it because he already knows I love 1) politics, 2) love stories, 3) laughing, and 4) hot men.

I just need to "give it a chance."

How did this happen you ask?

1) I really had to pee and the bathroom at Dragonfish is in the basement of the Paramount hotel. That is poor planning on their part. We were walking in the general direction of his place and I know the bathroom at his apartment is ridiculously clean.

2) I kinda wanted to make out. What dude wants to watch Star Wars when he can make out?

3) We were holding hands and I got distracted thinking "Why are his hands so soft?" and I think I agreed to it non-verbally.
Jesus.

Star Wars is loud. Yeah, Harrison Ford is kinda hot. But now he is old and married to Ally McBeal. But they run around and shoot things and who the fuck cares? I hate it. I find no inherent value.

Of course afterwards, there is the obligatory......SO??????????? look on his face.

And unlike Stella, I can't lie.

"Yeah, I still don't like it. I've been writing a blog about his in my head for the past hour."

Was he disappointed I didn't like it? No. He was actually very understanding. I think.

"You never have to watch a single Jane Austen movie, I promise," I told him.

I wasn't going to lie. I hated it. Sure, I could have pulled a Stella and said I liked it just to make him happy. But you know what? Stella was a bitch. She left Ted for her ex, a karate freak.

Don't even get me started about karate.