She's Not in the Refrigerator

I was watching the movie What Women Want with my wife the other day.  The character being played by Mel Gibson is fretting over his behavior and trying to make it right, but he can't get in contact with the woman he is enamored with to continue to try to do so.

At one point he is pacing around his apartment trying to figure out what to do.  He then opens the refrigerator door and does the refrigerator gaze, not knowing what he he wants to eat.  He comes to the conclusion that he isn't looking for something to eat at all.  He closes the door and says, "What am I doing? She's not in the refrigerator."


I have seen the movie a time or two before, but this time this line struck me as profound.  How often have we done the refrigerator stare not knowing what we wanted to eat, but in reality we didn't want anything.  We were either bored, stressed, or antsy.


How many other things in life do we do that are little more that the refrigerator stare?  What are we doing?  What we are looking for is not in the refrigerator.