Why every chick flick is exactly the same

I’m not ashamed to admit it: I love romantic comedies.  Okay… sometimes I am a bit embarrassed.  I shouldn’t be!  But… there is one reason that I am:  Every romantic comedy is exactly the same.

The plot line usually goes like this: Girl and boy don’t get along/hate each other –>forced in some situation to spend more time in each other’s presence –> begins to have feelings for each other –> one usually has another love interest that s/he begins to pursue –> makes the other person jealous and leads her/him to realize their feelings for her/him –> s/he goes after her/him –> begins a relationship.

It’s pretty much the same.  Pride & Prejudice (one of the best romantic comedies ever), 27 Dresses, 2 Weeks Notice, Knocked Up, How to Lose a Guy in Ten Days, The Ugly Truth, Letters to Juliet, The Proposal, Fools Rush In, Music & Lyrics, Bridget Jones’s Diary, Ten Things I Hate About You, Legally Blonde… The list goes on.

Personally, I have never read a Nicholas Sparks book or seen any movie versions (except for A Walk to Remember), so I cannot testify to the truth of this claim, but I wouldn’t doubt it if it were true: All Nicholas Sparks books and movies are the same.

Case in point:

Have all the great love stories of this world already been written so that no new ideas can come from new authors?  Or is it that love is so universal that all the stories, though different in detail, still maintain the overarching themes that render it so similar to every other love story in the world?