Old-age Weaknesses

On the drive home from a trip to the grocery store, a post just popped into my head for some reason, and it's not even about the game that I had mentioned and then erased in the first paragraph. It's about movies (another weakness of mine), and how I know I must be getting old because I'm starting to like chick flicks.

I know, of course, that logically this doesn't stand up. It's the "post hoc ergo propter hoc" fallacy (after this, therefore, because of this); I'm getting older, I'm starting to like chick flicks, therefore it must be the aging that's doing it. So instead I'll have to say that I'm getting senile because of what's happening to my likes.

It has to be, because I can remember the day--the movie, actually--that I stopped watching said flicks, the same way I can remember the day and movie that stopped my watching ones that scared me. I used to watch those in my teen years because those movies were the ones that one's peers loved and touted, and who knew to think any differently? I was only granted the ability, I have to conclude now that I look back, to start thinking for myself when I became a Christian at age 20 (along with, I swear, gaining IQ points!). But until that point I watched "Jaws" and "Alien" along with everybody else.

I reached the turning point when I decided to watch "Halloween" with my then-boyfriend-now-husband because of its classic status (even back then). We walked out after 15 minutes when I realized I was not enjoying myself, not in the least. My future husband wasn't either, and I swore from then on I would never watch another horror or scary thing, and I haven't (except for one inadvertent moment during "I Am Legend" which I didn't know would be scary and probably wouldn't be to most people).

The chick flick last straw came with "Steel Magnolias", though not through as conclusive a moment. I just thought it was pretty darn weak, and found myself going instead for Indiana Jones-type movies, graduating to the point where my idea of a great movie was just about action, and only action.

But I think I still have a thread of sanity to hang onto here, because I know I wouldn't enjoy "Magnolias" any more today than I did whatever years ago. Of course some girl movies are better than others, and I never avoided them all the way I did the scary genre. I also think that a bit o' snobbery had worked its way into it, the same type of thing as artists looking down on crafts and real rockers looking down on the Beatles or Barry Manilow or something. So maybe it's not senility after all, but a maturing into genuineness, allowing myself to like some embarrassing things that I really do like, thus proving myself logically wrong and maybe not-quite-old-enough at the same time.