Dear Reader, Disclaimer: I know this review is bound to make me unpopular with the female population at WSU, but it has to be said. Also, spoiler alert.

A dim room packed full of college girls where you are very nearly the only human with a Y chromosome should be most guy’s idea of a perfect dream, but what I experienced was nothing short of a nightmare.

So the plot (if honestly you can bring yourself to label it as such) is guy (Channing Tatum) meets girl (Amanda Seyfried) for two weeks of spring break and they instantly fall in love and have “like totally” the most deep and meaningful relationship ever known to humanity. While I’d love to rip this aspect of the film to pieces for total abandonment of reality, perhaps if I had the irritatingly chiseled body and limited range of emotion that Mr. Tatum has then maybe, I could have someone practically worship me in less than two weeks.

Their relationship hits a snag when he goes back on a military duty tour, poorly timed as it is when 9/11 occurs and he decides to remain with the troops. Their “tragically beautiful yet unrequited love” *cough* is maintained through letters, which prove to be as interesting for us to read on screen as watching the alluring glow of the screen’s neon EXIT sign. It took all of my professional integrity *cough* to see this train-wreck ride through to the end. Well, Seyfried gets bored of writing the letters, maybe her wrist got tired or the price of ink cartridges suddenly escalated, and decides to get married, leaving John to wander around aimlessly and broodingly staring into the distance for the rest of the film. Sorry to throw a spoiler curve ball in there, but if you consider that this is based on a Nicholas Sparks book, a nightmarish world where no one ever seems to be happy, and fatal diseases and the death of family and loved ones seem to be rife, then you could probably already guess that this was not going to end well.

Any sense of direction and pace are thrown in a fire in favor of several appallingly low-grade attempts of not pulling but yanking on the audiences’ heart strings to get them to cry buckets. And by god, did they get their job done with the audience I was seated in. Obviously in a romantic film, there needs to be sympathy and a strong connection to the (un)happy couple, but you can practically see the brick wall that divides buff macho-man Tatum with the altogether more delicate Seyfried who still hasn’t made a good film since “Mean Girls,” which is a tragedy for such an actress.

It is becoming customary for bad films to hide behind sensitive subjects to avoid any ridicule. There were some moments that were so spectacularly awful that I was literally having to bite down on my fist to stop myself from bursting out in a fit of hysterics. The highlight being the huge deal made out of how your thumb is always being bigger than the moon. Then, just when I thought “Avatar’s” ‘Unobtainium’ couldn’t be topped, Seyfried dubs her riding school “Camp Horse Sense” in her self-satisfying belief that both horses and children tragically afflicted with autism have a sixth sense that warns them of danger. Wow, we’re clearly dealing with very emotionally deep characters here.

But of course, before my editor’s e-mail box is flooded with complaints about how heartless I am, I’ll have it known that I love romantic films when they are well done. A key component to how much enjoyment you get out of a romantic film is if you personally can relate to the relationship represented onscreen. Naturally with “Dear John,” that just didn’t happen for me. I personally relate more to characters such as Joseph Gordon Levitt in “(500) Days of Summer.” We both listen to '80s music and are constantly lusting after Zooey Deschanel ... but I digress.

Ladies, if you really want that special man in your life to get you that special something for Valentine’s Day, then you will not make him endure this if you truly care for him. If you do subject him to this, then you better be willing to attend “The Wolfman” as a compromise. Then maybe afterward, we can discuss why the men have to see the horror and action movies alone when we want your company, and why we are forced to watch piles of atrocity like this when we’d really rather be anywhere else in the world.