My parents met at school, dated for several years and got married. That was the best part of forty years ago.

Meanwhile, I've just been to see Hollywood's latest take on romance: The Lakehouse. Oh, it's a highly predictable story about an impossible romance about two people who are almost always separated by two years of events. It's the kind of inoffensive but enjoyable date-movie film that would have been perfect for Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan. They got Keanu Reeves and Sandra Bullock instead, but that's fine. It does the job and I could watch Sandra Bullock read a telephone directory and still guarantee it at least 2 stars on credit. There are no real big surprises and it's a typical Hollywood rose-coloured glasses, semi-tragic story that'll make a decent amount at the cinema and huge amounts on DVD. It's all about time... and waiting for the perfect thing, or not wasting your time waiting for the perfect thing - it's still up for debate. Grab some popcorn. Maybe a tissue too.

But on the way back I couldn't help thinking that however artificial the Hollywood vision might be, we all undeniably buy into it, or want to at some point. Over the years I've seen my friends grow up, form lasting relationships, get married, have kids, sometimes divorce, sometimes live happily ever after, sometimes move away. Years ago I was best man for two friends of mine and though they live less than three miles away I haven't seen them in ages, through no other reason than time passes and before you know it the ties have loosened. That's a shame. Equally, I was a guest at a wedding eighteen months ago of close friends who I no longer see socially. Their loss.

Maybe it's a combination of the film (damn you Hollywood and your sly, manipulative ways!!) and the fact that I'm editing Kit and Ariel's wedding video at the moment, but I can't help noticing that life has a way of moving on when you're not looking. But I wonder if we sometimes enjoy the familiar too much, whatever its failings. Nowadays it's easier to be content than go for 'happy', easier to stick to the rythmns and routines that have proved they get us through the day relatively unscathed, rather than actually notice that the days, weeks, months are ticking by and the whole 'it's the journey not the destination' maxim is running on vapours. We don't change because it's easier not to. Kit and Ariel stepped up to the plate and moved things forward. I'm betting they knock it out of the ballpark.

But as I watch people from the sidelines, having never quite got my own timing right, I sometimes wonder what things I'm holding onto and what things I've held to too tightly. Like Sandra and Keanu, there's a point where you have to decide what you want and what you'll settle for, what you think you deserve and what you truly want in the grand scheme of things...and who's to say which should be the yardstick?

My parents met at school, dated for several years and got married. That was the best part of forty years ago. In that time, for all the ebbs and flows, I've rarely seen a relationship that matches up to it. I guess that for better or worse, that's my yardstick.