"Meaningless" sex

You know how one household problem can lead to a totally unrelated one?

I won't bore you with the torrid details, but suffice it to say I was definitely ready for a comedy last night. Escaping the technological conundrums of the VOIP router and the back-up heating problem in the living room, I rented a 2004 movie called "Seeing Other People."

If you are willing to suspend disbelief, or maybe suspend belief for the space of an hour or two, this slight movie is really pretty funny-with a nasty edge to it.

On the threhold of getting married to a man with whom she is quite happy (in a content, doing the laundry on Saturday night way), a young woman decides she hasn't had enough sexual experience. Before she vows "forever" she wants to have meaningless sex with some other guys. Her fiance isn't happy about this-at first. But as the movie goes on, and they both start hooking up with other people, he gets into the spirit of the experiment.

Of course it is not long into the movie that they realize they have started something that they can't control. This isn't a movie for the sentimental. But it is very funny-and close enough to the hook-up culture so prevalent in colleges and among young people to seem plausible. I have to say I thought parts of it were hilarious-and cried in a couple of the other parts. A subplot involving a young boy came just close enough to real life for me to get very squirmy.

If there is a moral here, it's don't do a threesome with a feminist and her crack-head friend from Harvard.

Although not at all treacly, "Seeing Other People" reminded me that when we play with other people's feelings, we aren't only gaming our relationships. We may be affecting a whole chain of others-and will get to see them naked, in many more ways than one.