Theres Something About Mary

Regret is one of the most powerful emotions human beings can experience. Regretting decisions that were made for a career or for buying a car or really any type of decision that afterwards plagues us is a common human occurrence. The worst type of regret is losing someone that we felt we had romantic feelings for and having the situation not work out to our hopes. It is this regret that plagues Ben Stiller’s character Ted, in Something About Mary. Ted feels that the girl Mary (played by Cameron Diaz) is his soul mate and his major regret in life is that the two of them never formed a romantic relationship. The only romantic interaction they had was the night of their prom where Ted had an embarrassing accident happen to him and never got to take her to the prom. The result was that over the next 15 years Ted never was able to get over Mary; his obsession with her ultimately leading him to hire a private investigator to find her. Unfortunately things do not go Ted’s way through much of the movie as the investigator betrays him because of his own newfound feelings for Mary and primarily because of his deception. Ted makes several key mistakes throughout the movie in his pursuit of Mary, all of which it turns out at the end were unnecessary. Examing Ted’s desire to be in a relationship with Mary, and his efforts to attain that goal, offer an insight into many of the topics covered in interpersonal communication. Variables of interpersonal communication applicable to Ted are Conflict management styles, types of deception, elements of attraction, relation escalation, and non verbal communication codes. All these variables were involved with Ted’s mistakes throughout the movie and the most damaging of these was his deception; taking a closer look at these variables and how Teds actions apply to them gives a great insight into the human mind and provides a lesson everyone can learn from.

The fact that Ted has feelings for Mary is not a bad thing in and of itself. Having romantic feelings for someone else is a normal and healthy function for any individual; it is what gives human beings their essence. It is true that in Ted’s case having feelings like that for someone for 15 years can be definitely be called a form of stalking or at the very least an unhealthy obsession. However the movie is a comedic fiction so it should not be taken seriously and rather the other elements of his feelings for and interaction with Mary should be examined. The key mistake Ted makes from the moment the movie starts in its current day is his inability to communicate his feelings for Mary. This is an inability and problem that faces many individuals and it is due to a fear of rejection. Obviously Ted has feelings of attraction for Mary but his inability to tell her directly is part of the elements of attraction variable. One of the key concepts of this variable is the Reciprocation of Liking, meaning having feelings for an individual that has feelings for us. Unfortunately as the book points out in Chapter 9 most individuals do not come out and simply tell someone they have feelings for them for fear of rejection. This is the crux of Ted’s problem throughout the movie. Ted is afraid that if he comes to Mary and tells her he has feelings for her she will think he is a stalker or just strange or he is simply worried she will reject him. Obviously most individuals not just Ted feel nervous telling someone about feelings they have for them for fear they will not be reciprocated. Ironically a passage from the book shows something interesting and something that disproves most individuals notions of reciprocation of emotions:

“Most of the students significantly underestimated the amount of attraction the other person felt for them. It is unclear whether we underestimate because we don’t have much confidence that others will like us as much as we like them, or because in general we do not communicate effectively our level of attraction for others.” (pg 266, Interpersonal Communication, second edition)

The passage mentioned here is in relation to a study by Mark Redmond and Denise Vrchota which examined the level of attraction, both emotional and physical, between undergraduates meeting for the first time. The study showed that the undergraduates who met each other underestimated the