I Blame Hugh Grant For Everything

And by everything, I mean the fact I once thought emotional neglect was foreplay.

They told us love was a grand gesture. They sold us airports. They handed us Hugh Grant in a raincoat, mumbling half a sentence and blinking like he’d just come out of a coma, and called it character development. I was born in 2001, raised on a diet of chaotic white women in silk camisoles and men who spoke like they had a secret wife in the attic. I remember watching Notting Hill and thinking, God, he’s perfect. Quiet. Nervous. Emotionally suspicious. A walking red flag with good hair and the sexual energy of a teabag left in too long.

Looking back? Peak attractive at 13. A safeguarding concern at 24.

Because let’s me be honest with you now: we were set up. Conditioned. Rom-coms didn’t teach us love, they taught us how to romanticise red flags. A non-exhaustive list of things we were taught to ignore includes:

• Emotional constipation ("He just needs time!")

• Zero ambition beyond owning a bookshop with no customers

• An ex he’s definitely not over but still talks about like it’s fine

• A personality built entirely on vibes and unwashed knitwear

• Avoidant attachment disguised as mystery

• And of course: the all-important tragic backstory that explains why he’s never said ‘I love you’ without blinking like he's being held hostage

We didn’t stand a chance. This wasn’t just a genre. It was cultural grooming with a British accent.

Rom-coms didn’t just lie to us. They gave us a psychological training manual disguised as entertainment and we ate it like communion. The man? Emotionally constipated, vaguely successful, owns a leather chair, cries maybe once per decade. The woman? Cute. Spiralling. Doesn’t really eat. Has a job in “media” but never goes to work. Together they go through one minor inconvenience, have a shouting match in the snow, and somehow that’s enough to erase every single intimacy issue festering beneath his Jigsaw-level attachment style.

Love Actually convinced us that holding up passive-aggressive cue cards while a woman’s husband is in the next room was an acceptable form of flirting. The Holiday told me Jude Law was a safe romantic option. Jude Law. Bridget Jones chain-smoked herself into a panic attack just to land a man who looked allergic to eye contact. And Notting Hill? That entire film is one long ad for settling. Apparently if a man can mumble his way through a breakup monologue in knitwear, we’re supposed to melt like it’s poetry.

We were trained to see red flags and applaud. He’s not emotionally repressed. He’s just British. He’s not ignoring you. He’s traumatised. He’s not mean. He’s hot and standing near a piano. Same difference.

We were also raised on the main character myth. Julia Roberts in thigh-high boots. Meg Ryan crying near a fax machine. Girls who changed the man simply by being there, blinking twice, and owning a sundress. We didn’t grow up thinking we’d fall in love. We grew up thinking we’d be the exception. The woman who softens him. The woman who “shows him what love really means”. The woman who endures four red flags, a casual betrayal, and one slightly unhinged monologue in order to earn his commitment like it’s an Oscar.

I once genuinely believed the line “I’m just a girl, standing in front of a boy, asking him to love her” was romantic. Looking back, it reads like the final words of someone who needs rescuing from a cult. If I ever beg a man to love me again, put me in a group chat with every woman he’s ghosted and let them pelt me with Cath Kidston accessories until I regain consciousness. We were trained to believe we were different. But now we’re on dating apps where the only thing he’s emotionally available for is his gym mirror and his own sense of victimhood. I’m not the main character. I’m the closing credits. And he still wouldn’t watch to the end.

Where were the rom-coms about blocked numbers and unread therapy invoices? Where was The Notebook scene where she realises he’s actually lovebombing her between custody hearings? In movies, heartbreak is poetic. It’s rain. It’s a handwritten letter. It’s the camera panning out while she stares longingly at the ocean. In real life, heartbreak is health anxiety, IBS, three unpaid invoices, and Googling “can you get PTSD from emotional ambiguity.”

In rom-coms, he runs to the airport. In real life, he watches your story while on the toilet and then posts a black screen that says “healing era.” We were sold grand gestures like they were normal. But if a man ever showed up at my door uninvited now, I wouldn’t say “yes” through tears. I’d say “no” through a Ring doorbell while holding a kitchen knife and Googling panic rooms. The only gestures men have in 2024 are:

• Liking your 2019 Insta selfie at 2:14am

• Sending “u up?” with no punctuation or context

• Reposting a quote that says “real men stay silent and build in private” while actively ghosting six people

“Sorry I disappeared, I’ve just been going through a lot lately.”
Oh. Is that what we’re calling mild accountability now?

We weren’t waiting for love. We were waiting for signs of basic oxygenated brain function.

Rom-coms taught women to work for love. Not build it. Not choose it. Earn it. We weren’t shown relationships. We were shown customer service. You smile through the red flags. You show patience. You absorb the damage. Meanwhile, the man just... exists. Sometimes he wears a scarf. Sometimes he makes one semi-sincere comment about his mum and suddenly we’re planning the wedding.

She softens him. She teaches him how to feel. She helps him heal. She stands in the rubble of his poor communication skills and builds a fucking villa. And for what? A half-apology and a scene in a train station? Babe, I’m not your redemption arc. I’m just trying to eat my Pret in peace without becoming the human embodiment of your emotional development. How many of us stayed with men we were helping like they were a Year 9 group project with anxiety and Spotify Premium?

We were taught to wait for the third act twist. The Big Realisation. The moment where he sprints through traffic to finally confess he’s in love and emotionally literate now. But here’s the reality. He’s not going to realise your worth in the rain. He’s going to realise you blocked him when he tries to DM you in six months and accidentally sends a fire emoji to your dog’s birthday story. Men are not underwritten characters waiting for a rewrite. There is no catharsis. Just trauma. And maybe a voice note you’ll regret sending after two glasses of white wine and a spiritual relapse.

Love is not supposed to hurt and then work. Pain is not a prerequisite. You are not a therapist with benefits. You are not a character arc. You are not the lesson. And if it takes a dramatic climax for him to love you? He doesn’t.

I blame Hugh Grant. But I also blame the writers. The execs. The culture. The idea that emotional unavailability is romantic if it has an accent. They sold us fantasy. And called it feminism.

If any emotionally repressed man in a knitted vest is reading this and planning a speech:

Don’t.

We’re not home.