How to: lose a guy in 10 days

Hello there… Pull up a chair, pour yourself something, and help yourself with this all-you-can-eat buffet of what’s unspoken behind the hidden science of Losing a Guy in 10 Days. 

As a self-proclaimed delusional—a title earned through years of overanalyzing daily life encounters and imagining meet-cutes in grocery store aisles—I find myself captivated by the absurd elegance of rom coms. The seamless way they capture love's ebb and flow feels so intriguingly real but exists only in the fabric of fiction. Every accidental touch, serendipitous reunion, and grand declaration hits with such an accuracy that feels both cruel and exhilarating—like a bullseye aimed squarely at my wishful heart. In this film, a lucky couple and their every move seems choreographed by a deity itself. But let’s shatter the illusion, shall we? As a matter of fact, the down-to-earth realist within me is rolling her eyes, muttering with a wry grin, "Nothing is that natural, darling." And she’s right. Love in the real world doesn’t unfold in glossy and even less on childish montages scored by a Diane Keaton classic. It’s messy, imperfect, and utterly devoid of slow-motion pinky promise kisses at sunset that, as spectators, we watch from the rearview mirror.

Now, consider the transformation: the girl who once closed her eyes tightly after a midnight star dashed across the sky—hoping for love to arrive, dressed in gallant perfection—has evolved. Her wish wasn’t for a toad-to-prince metamorphosis, nor for a glass slipper moment. No, she dreamed of a man who’d treat her as a princess, a partner to match her head to toes. Fast-forward to today, and here I am, not wishing upon stars but orchestrating ways to drive a man away—not in 30 days, mind you, but in less than a fortnight. Ten days, to be precise. Just a week and few days to provoke a “him” to dump a “her”. Where's the thrill without a little chaos? To write the rules, you must know the rules. To play the game, you must first dare to outsmart it. And maybe, just maybe, the real magic lies in the impossible, yet wonderfully chaotic pursuit of love and letting it surprise you in ways no movie ever could.

Revisiting How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days felt a bit like peering into a time capsule of early 2000s absurdity. And let me assure you, absurdity it was, wrapped up in Manolo Blahniks and dipped in magazine gloss. A rom-com horror show, if you will. Don’t misunderstand me, darling—actually, go ahead if it suits you. I can admit there’s a part of me that loves it, even considers it a to-go movie. But another part? It wants to toss its cookies all over Donald Petrie’s (the Movie’s Director) padded-shoulder poly blend blazer.

Let’s dissect the problem, shall we? Andie Anderson, our protagonist, is a journalist with aspirations as high as her designer heels. Politics, economics, global conflicts, topics with meat and marrow, worthy of a sharp mind and sharper wit. Instead? She’s stuck penning puff pieces for a magazine tailored to an audience apparently too dainty to handle the weight of real-world issues. I can imagine the titles being tossed at her. I wouldn't be either willing to write such things as: “The Ultimate Guide to Guilt-Free Retail Tag Snipping” or “Pet Peeves That Could Derail Your Relationship (Hint: It’s Your Fault).” Would you?

It’s infantilizing. It’s maddening. And frankly, it’s an affront to any woman who’s ever sat at her desk, daring to dream of bylines that mattered. But let’s move to the pièce de résistance: Andie’s boss hands her a mind-numbing task: write a feature on how to snag and subsequently scare off a man in ten days. Yes, ten days. It’s journalism as theater, a pageant of stereotypes: keep him close with sultry charms, then send him running with a carefully curated arsenal of “typical” feminine flaws. Being Whiney. Actually, being too clingy. Too quirky. Too…human.

 And here’s what I imagine this editorial would be based on the movie:

Dear Girls:

Day One: Blow up his phone with notifications. BRRRING-BRRRING! Dial him like his phone is a hotline to Heaven itself. Ding ding ding! Cute, right? JK.

Day Two: Okeyyyyy now, sabotage his passion. If he loves sports, turn off the TV mid-game. Best part? Click… and just wait for a "NOOOOOOOOO!" That's how success sounds.

Day Three: Avalanche of "feminine" products. Flood his space with things that aren’t his. Is it territorial? Yes. Is it hilarious? Also, yes. Don’t act like a pack of tampons isn’t peak intimidation. It is, indeed, not.

Day Four: Go to watch something that just interests you, not him. This, I find challenging. The people pleaser in me could never. He sighs; you shush him with shhhh shhhh.

Day Five: NOW FOOD! Refuse his food offerings. He brings you fries? Nah. Cupcake? Hard pass. Just call it fasting, but for the plot. (P.S. Prefer steak medium rare, just not from him.)

Day Six: Mock his "thing." Whether it’s a catchphrase or his love for dad jokes, imitate him with Olympic-level precision. Extra points for doing it in public.

Day Seven: Walk over fragile masculinity. 

Day Eight: AHHH. Blast songs that you like and seem the type of thing he’d abhor. If he sings along? Check before you wreck yourself.

Day Nine: What about a wedding? His timeline is "next week"? Yours is the next millennia. A veeeery long way off. A lot of commitment and enough problems to blame him.

Day Ten: The final distance. You'll see if he'll sprint as fast as he can away from you or to you— meaning he’s just masochistic. Remember, the latter one could be because he is madly in love with you, though. May that love find me.

Now, before anyone misreads this as a dagger thrown at men (or worse, at comedy itself), let me clarify: the critique here isn’t about guys. It’s about how we frame women. Andie’s brilliance gets dimmed, her independence squashed, all to package her as a modern Venus flytrap. It’s not empowering. It’s reductive. Still, what intrigues me about How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days is what Andie could have represented. She’s smart, capable, and resourceful. Imagine her carving out space to write what mattered to her—bold truths, investigative pieces that made the world sit up and listen. That’s the story I want to watch. A story where women are the architects of their own narratives—not characters rewritten to fit someone else’s idea of charm. The lesson? Maybe it’s time we all rewrite a few scripts—be it rom-coms, editorials, or the way we see ourselves. Because no matter what anyone says, a woman doesn’t need to tear herself down to build someone else up.

Ladies, if you want to rip the tag off something today, make it the box they keep trying to put us in.

What really keeps me up at night is this: Ben, our so-called victim, willingly tolerates Andie’s relentless, suffocating brand of affection—only because there’s a catch. And honey, there’s always a catch. Especially in this movie. And oh, this one glistens—no, blinds you—with a Tiffany-grade shine. I can practically feel Ben’s passion for diamonds through the screen because, let’s be honest, he’s plotting to dismantle a flesh-and-blood woman just to land a marketing job within a diamond company. It’s bold. Ruthless, even. Yet somehow, he plays the game. Every time she pushes him away, he pulls her right back—closer, tighter. And wow, do they go there.

Here’s the rub, though: It makes me think. First, about the ridiculous implication that a million-dollar carrot must dangle for a man to endure what is conveniently labeled "a woman’s behavior.” Ugh, dated much? And second, the sheer, ludicrous beauty of two people chasing their selfish agendas, only to tumble headfirst into that silly little thing called love.

  Honey, open your eyes! In this movie, love isn’t the prize, just quite the opposite, it’s the con. It’s the game you think you’re playing, until you realize it’s been playing you all along.