It's official – 2026 can be crowned the year of the millennial. The harsh reality of recent years, especially for Israelis, has made one thing clear: we all need comfort of the highest order, the nostalgic kind, laced with the simplicity of an earlier time, the kind we can only get from one medium: 2000s romantic comedies.
The streaming giants have answered the call and rolled out the heavy artillery, with a new romantic comedy starring genre queen Jennifer Lopez, courtesy of Netflix, the same platform that gave us "People We Meet on Vacation," which won over hearts around the world. Amazon, meanwhile, has been working on a television adaptation of the book series "Off Campus," giving audiences exactly what they want, with references to "Friends," "10 Things I Hate About You," "Crazy, Stupid, Love," "Dirty Dancing" and "She's All That," all in a single season.
This romantic nostalgia has also reached the world of fashion; Y2K style is raising its head on social media (and to my great dismay, low-rise jeans have made a comeback too), along with iconic looks from beloved films like "13 Going on 30." The most successful comeback, however, belongs to a look that has held first place in the hearts of many women for years: Kate Hudson's yellow dress from "How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days," and, fittingly, a sequel was announced just last month.
This nostalgia – and I won't lie, it warms my heart – made me wonder: do our comfort movies, the ones we watch over and over during times of crisis, actually reflect the impossible mission that is dating today?
The yearning for a simpler time, before social media and long before dating apps, is wonderful, but it isn't reality. Ten days to get rid of a guy today? If such a unicorn exists, hold on to him; he's a rare find. I'm sorry to disappoint the Hollywood producer working on the sequel to the rom-com starring Matthew McConaughey and Kate Hudson, but "How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days" 2027 edition would be the shortest romantic comedy in history. All Hudson would need to do is:
- Show interest: the most effective way to get rid of a guy in the current era. Simple and easy.
- Skip the games: a quick, unfiltered reply is apparently enough of a red flag for men in 2026.
- Set boundaries: we were always told boundaries make people value us more. Maybe. Less so when it's a guy you refuse to meet spontaneously, insisting instead on a set place and time. In most cases, he'll simply vanish.
- Know what you want: apparently there's no trait more terrifying than that.
Getting rid of a guy today is a far simpler task. There's no need for Hudson's elaborate escape efforts from the film, like a dramatic, hysterical meltdown, or an absurd demand to go to couples therapy after less than a week. It's almost incidental now, an everyday occurrence with no warning, no effort required. Dating-world trauma has always been Hollywood's gold mine, but an era marked by this level of chronic alienation, the one today's singles now face, is unprecedented.
It doesn't take a genius to see what's fueling the rom-com comeback. Hope for love has faded so completely that no one can blame us for seeking comfort in Jude Law's hypnotic eyes as he meets Cameron Diaz in "The Holiday," clinging to some fragment of belief that an impossible love story could happen to us too, the kind involving two people who, on paper, had given up just as much as we have, and still found each other.
The problem is, once the movie ends, the belief goes with it, snuffed out by yet another cold exchange on some dating app. For romantic comedies today, the real challenge is sparking that flicker of belief in an era when the "meet-cute," the scene where two lovers first cross paths, almost never happens anymore. Flirting has migrated to Instagram DMs and swiping right, and even there, nothing guarantees it isn't just a bored gesture from one side.
Sure, romantic comedies carry an element of fantasy. That's part of the fun, the science-fiction genre of the dating world. But the core has to be real, something beyond the blessed two-hour escapism. Right now, I don't expect a romantic comedy to make me believe I could fall in love with a guy in 10 days. I just want to believe we could hold a conversation for 10 days straight.
