Listening to: James Blunt - You're Beautiful
Currently feeling: Hungry

Whoa. Two posts, in the space of less than a day. Looks like holidays are really effective for blogging, eh?

Well, I've been doing some reading again. Haven't really picked up a good book in ages, what with all that business with the Sunway Ball and then straight after, having trials. Rented this book, it's called 'The Catch' by Mark Mason. Yeah, I suppose you could classify it as 'chick lit', but it's 'chick lit' with a kind of difference, cause it's actually been written by a guy. Which crudely enough, some people refer to it as 'dick lit'. Crude, eh?.

Now. Why am I talking about this book? Well. There's a lil something in the final pages of this book that is pretty compelling. Haha. Yes, I found something in a 'chick/dick lit' book compelling, believe it or not. So, if you have this book and are planning to read it anytime soon and don't want to know the ending just yet, don't read on.

*SPOILERS AHEAD*

Okay, first of all. The book's about this guy named Sam, middle-aged and coming to a point where he is looking to further his relationship with his girlfriend whom he really loves, Kirsty, who now lives with him. He finally works up the nerve to propose, but there's...

The Catch. Hence, the title of the book.

For her to accept his proposal, she's going to put him on a point system. For twelve weeks, it means that he's sorta gotta be on best behaviour. She'll allocate him points for things that nice things that he's done, and deduct them on awful stuff. And she's not going to explain how he scores those points. At the end of every week, she'll write down his points tally on a piece of paper in an envelope and pass it to him. So, if he manages to hit a thousand points by the end of twelve weeks, she'll take the ring and be his bride.

So this poor guy does everything that he thinks is right. He does the ironing, takes the trash out, leaves the toilet seat down, you name it and he does it. He does really horribly the first few weeks, getting weeky scores of 19 and 27. At the end of the 11th week, he's only still standing at about 630 points. He's confused, tired, still in love, and about a hundred other emotions at the same time. The thing is, he's got friends telling him that perhaps the entire points system is his girlfriend's way of telling him 'you know, you didn't make the points, so let's break up.' Like a way of getting out of the relationship. Which makes things far worse for him.

I mean, from my point of view, love and marriage is not about getting points or proving if the guy's worthy enough to be your husband, isn't it? What exactly is the point of all this nonsense if you're putting him through all this misery? There's no way that proves anything. So what if he does the laundry and cooking? That's not love, is it? I was tempted to put the book down, but I read on anyway.

By the end of the 12th week, he's sick and tired of it all, after a session with his friends at the pub getting drunk with two unknown cocaine-snorting girls, he realized that he needed to go home to sort all this points nonsense out. He leaves the club and here's what he says:

"Each step made me feel better, because it was a step nearer to home, to Kirsty. I still hadn't got a clue how her points worked, or why I'd failed to get anywhere near enough of them, but at least now I was going to tackle it all head on, rather than fronting it out while I tried to second-guess her...I was going home to find out whether or not I was to stay with the only woman I'd ever really loved. This was the most important moment of my life."

Strangely enough, as he reaches home, he bumps into this other guy leaving in a hurry as he reaches the doorstep. And with the occurence of a few other events [he finds a cufflink that doesn't belong to him on her dressing table], he thinks that she's been cheating on him and that this whole points thing really is her way of getting out of the relationship. He walks out on her. [And at this point, I was really thinking, goodness what a moronic woman.]

He finds an envelope the next day, with a piece of paper inside that says 'One million points'. His girlfriend finally goes to find him, explaining that the guy he bumped into, and the single cufflink that he found was all a plan. Yeah, I know you're probably wondering, 'huh?' She sits down next to him, and explains it all.

She said, "What I've been waiting weeks for you to say is that you were giving up. That you didn't know, couldn't work out how to earn these points. You thought it was all about strength, showing me how strong you are, proving that you could fight your way through it. But that's not what love's about. It's not about being strong, it's about being weak. All I wanted to know was that you understood that. I don't know if I'd quite realised what I was up to at the beginning. Getting the bathroom cleaned was a pleasant change. But halfway through, yeah, it all worked itself out in my mind and I knew that's what I was looking for. I wanted to know that you were scared, that you were weak like me. You kept putting on your show of strength, as though I was some girl you'd only just met who you had to impress. But when you're really in love with someone, that's not how it should be. The person you really love is the one you can be weak in front of. All I wanted was for you to give up, to admit that you didn't know how to earn the points. That would prove you weren't afraid to be weak in front of me."



And I thought, "Wow." Talk about an ending, man.