I didn’t date much in high school. Few of my friends did. We were a small class—only 85 students or so—and while we had a great time together, there was never much romantic drama. We were more interested in hanging out than making out. So I remember it being a little weird when a bunch of us went as a co-ed group to see The Wedding Singer on Valentine’s Day weekend during senior year. The boys went because it was an Adam Sandler movie, and we were already deep in our reverence for the burgeoning comic star. Happy Gilmore and Billy Madison were mainstays in our rotation. Why did the girls join us? It didn’t occur to me at that point that girls liked Sandler, too, perhaps for slightly different reasons. But sensing that this evening had the opportunity to turn romantic, we immediately split up when we entered the theater. The girls sat near the front, and the boys in the back. It was weird. And it felt ever weirder when The Wedding Singer revealed itself to be not another sophomoric Sandler comedy but a rather sweet rom-com with just a few sophomoric touches. I felt like I was in the wrong row at the wrong movie at the wrong time.
It was the right movie for Adam Sandler.
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