Bad Timing and Love in New York

A small story about us all. Even if we don't display our neurosis as publicly as Woody Allen, its hard to deny that they are all in there. Are his own, any more or less than ours, keeping him from being happy? Do we each, at turns, undermine the possibility of our own happiness? Even if any match between two people is little more or less than an arrangement between colliding deranged personas, this need not marginalize the importance of the loves we share.

Sometimes it works out. Mostly it doesn't. And, really, romances that work are rarely funny, or interesting. Its a take on Tolstoy: all happy relationships are the same; every unhappy relationship is unhappy in its own way. It is the failure that makes them most interesting. But, sometimes, the failure is not of our doing. What if, truly, the time just wasn't right? Allen's Manhattan is mostly about relationships doomed by the intricate failures of time. One of you is married; or both. Someone is too old; or too young. You're going away and I'm right here. It may not be particularly romantic, and certainly undermines any notion of "soul mates," but relationships are also about making our lives fit together at the right time. What if we were always, just, missing the right time to find love?