I don’t watch many romantic comedies, but I thought I saw one years ago in which the male lead pays some kids in a park to shoot the date of the female lead with squirt guns.
I had somehow gotten it into my head that this scene happened in You’ve Got Mail. As those more familiar with the genre will already know, no such scene appears in that film. So, where did I see it?
Addicted to Love. They shot him with perfume. 
ETA: Or Rio by Duran Duran.
Thanks, Sage Rat. I’d always remembered that scene as emblematic of all that is wrong with romantic comedies. But when I saw You’ve Got Mail recently and didn’t see the scene, I started to worry that I’d made the whole thing up :).
Huh? “Addicted to love” is an excellent movie.
I wouldn’t say that Addicted to Love is a particularly good (or bad) romantic comedy, but indeed, I don’t see how this one scene is any better or worse than anything.
You’ve Got Mail sucked though. I’d recommend Michael of Nora Ephron films.
Really? You would be about the first one, then. Let me check…
Well, 36% rotten at Rottentomatoes.com is not that bad. I thought it was more universally hated.
“Addicted to love” is an underrated masterpiece, if it wasn’t by the lame main actors, Broderick and meg Ryan, it would be a classic:
Maggie: When I was a kid, my father had this dog that started to get all weak and sickly. He takes it to the vet, he examines it and says a maggot must have laid eggs in the dog’s butt. The baby maggots have crawled up, now they’ve started to grow, and eventually they’re gonna eat the dog alive from the inside. He says it should be put to sleep, because it’s an old dog anyway. But father won’t do it. He takes the dog home, he puts it on the bed, he reaches up into the dog, picking out the maggots with his finger, one by one. It takes him all night, but he gets every last one. That dog outlived my father. That’s love, Sam.
How can you not love that? This is good writing.
Given that 99% of movies are <40% on Rotten Tomatoes, I can’t say that bothers me. 
Yahoo Movies gives a B- for Michael and B- to Addicted to Love.
The latter does have more interesting dialogue, but the romance seems pretty random. You don’t get the feeling like they were really interested in each other before deciding that they’re in love.
Matthew Broderick made an even more artsy romantic comedy named The Night We Never Met. You might like it if you like Addicted to Love.
Wait a minute - in the sadly overlooked 2002 comedy “Big Trouble” there is a scene with teen boy ambushing girl with water pistol as part of dare/high school game. Maybe that’s the movie the OP was thinking of?
Or maybe my insomnia’s got the best of me. Anyway the movie’s hilarious.
I hesitate now to judge too harshly, because my memory of the scene and its context is obviously not reliable. But I’ve always been irritated by movies that have a character acting in a childish, petty, and cruel fashion, with the clear intent that you, the viewer, find that behavior endearing. That scene, at least as I remember it, was a prime example of this. The scene was particularly egregious because of the twisted way that it incorporated the “Aw, he’s good with kids” trope that seems to appear in all romantic comedies.
ATL isn’t exactly a romantic comedy, is it? I’ve always enjoyed what I thought was a deliberate and delightful spoofing of the conventions of that genre. Almost all romantic comedies involve behavior that in real life would be frightening and obsessive – ATL just runs with it.
I remember watching Secretary which was supposed to be innovative and surprising for its bondage and S&M themes, and realizing it was hitting all the romcom formula points.
Hey, S&M freaks need love, too!
I disagree. I believe that you (the viewer) should have felt their behaviour as obsessive, petty, unfair and ultimately self-destructive.