Dear John

Alee’s Analysis: A clichéd but heartfelt story of love found and love lost.

Dear John is a 2010 romantic drama centered around the long-distance relationship of Savannah Curtis (Amanda Seyfried) and John Tyree (Channing Tatum). The movie is based on the Nicholas Sparks novel, Dear John.

Savannah and John meet by chance one spring day and quickly fall in love. Their whirlwind romance takes place over two weeks and they’re convinced that they’ve found a life partner. Despite knowing that they will soon be separated, they decide to pursue a relationship. But when time and distance comes between them they realize that relationships may be easy to begin but difficult to maintain.

Opposites Attract

Savannah and John come from separate worlds and are as different as can be, which causes attraction and tension in their relationship. Savannah is the wholesome, empathic, goody two-shoes student who arrives in North Carolina on spring break to help build homes for families in need. There she meets John, a rebellious, seemingly dispassionate U.S. Army sergeant who is finally finding direction in life.

Savannah studies psychology and her ever-present curiosity about people causes issues with John who would rather keep his life private. However, John feels comfortable enough to invite Savannah to his home, where she meets his father.

John admits to Savannah that he and his father have a strained relationship. He has a hard time understanding his reclusive, socially awkward and routine-obsessed father. Savannah hopes to help the father and son understand each other. After spending some time with him, Savannah offers her diagnosis: John’s father has a mild form of autism (Asperger’s Syndrome).

Instead of being happy to finally understand, John is angered by Savannah’s examination of his father and their relationship meets one bump in the road. Luckily, they reconcile before John is to leave.

Love Can’t Survive the Distance

After their brief affair, Savannah and John return to their regularly scheduled lives: her to college and he to the battlefield. But they promise that they will continue their relationship through John’s enlistment and Savannah’s college years. They do this by writing letters back and forth.

But John ends up spending more time away than he prepared for, and over the next two years they find their relationship dwindling. Neither really understands why things have changed and initially blame each other for the demise of their relationship.

…Or Can It?

John remains in the Army after their relationship ends, even after being shot; he doesn’t feel like he has anything to go home to. When he finally returns to the United States, after a total of seven years, he goes to see Savannah but retains his anger at her for the relationship break-up.

What he doesn’t know is that, after all this time, Savannah still loves him and never forgot about him. When they finally tell each other their true feelings, it is up to them to decide to pursue their love again. The ending, like most parts of this movie, is as predictable as can be but somehow manages to pull your heart strings.

Asperger’s: Signs and Coping

Josh Hartnett in "Mozart and the Whale", a film about Asperger's

Do you have trouble in social situations? Do others see your behavior as rude when that wasn’t your intention?

Asperger Syndrome is a condition involving severe difficulty with social interaction and communication. It is closely related to autism and can be seen as a milder form of the disorder.

Asperger’s tends to be diagnosed later in life than autism and other related disorders which are noticed in early childhood. This is partly because those with Asperger’s don’t have language problems and are of normal intelligence. Many times Aspies, as they are sometimes called, are very intelligent and self-sufficient. By all signs, Aspies appear “normal”. However, their issues with social communication becomes more clear as they grow older and must interact with other people. People with Asperger Syndrome don’t understand basic rules of social interaction which can cause them to be socially ostracized or teased as young adults and into adulthood.

What does it mean to have Asperger’s? There are two major signs of Asperger Syndrome: impairment in social interaction and narrow, restricted interests.

Social Impairment

People with Asperger’s tend to be lost in social situations and interact awkwardly with other people. They especially have trouble with non-verbal behavior such as eye contact: they either make little eye contact or stare. Their facial expressions can be off: they may not make many at all or their expressions may be inappropriate for the situation.

Aspies can take figurative expressions literally. They also seem to lack empathy for others and have trouble understanding things from another person’s point of view.

Narrow, Restricted Interests

Aspies regularly develop unusual, narrow interests. For example, a child may become obsessed with dinosaurs and devote all of their time to this interest. They know detailed information about their subject(s) of interests and talk about their interests all the time.

People with Asperger’s also tend to have a high preference for consistency and routine. They show rigid patterns of behavior and can become agitated when their regular routine is changed.

Having several of these traits indicates that you may be diagnosable with Asperger’s. But not looking people in the eye or boring people with mathematics is not what make an Aspie and a single symptom is not proof of the condition. Self-diagnosing is dangerous, not to mention inaccurate. To know if you have Asperger’s, you must go see a professional.

Coping Social Mechanisms

If you do have Asperger’s or know someone who has it, there are ways you can learn to cope with the lack of social awareness. Social cues can be learned, but not in the way a person without Asperger’s or similar disorders (known as “neurotypical”) would learn them.

For example, a neurotypical simply knows when it’s their turn to speak or what amount of eye contact is desired. If you’re an Aspie you can learn: when a person stops talking, count two seconds in your head before you start talking, to make sure it’s really your turn to speak and you’re not interrupting. You can learn what topics and behavior are off-limits when it comes to social interaction, but this usually comes with experience.

Some coping mechanisms may seem mechanic and “dishonest” to a neurotypical person, but it doesn’t have to be. Aspies generally don’t want to be rude or appear cold and unsympathetic. They just don’t know how to express what they feel. So learning these coping mechanisms is like learning a foreign language: you translate what you feel to the language a neurotypical person can understand.

This post was developed using comments from Mira.