Boy meets girl / Girl meets boy

the Manic Pixie Dream Girl trope, unfolded

Version 1:

Boy meets girl. 

Boy likes girl. 

Boy falls in love with girl.

Boy thinks she is the most perfect girl in the world, especially when girl agrees to go to all of boy's favorite spots, and do all of boy's favorite things.

Boy is obsessed with everything girl does, like when she understands the most obscure references.

Boy cannot believe girl's favorite artist is also Julian Casablancas. 

Boy thought only his favorite artist could be was Julian Casablancas!

Boy says, "Girl is different! Girl is not like any other girl!"

Boy thinks girl has changed his life. 

Boy wonders how he could've ever gone through life without meeting girl. 

Boy thinks he doesn't know how to live life without girl.

(Spoiler: this, boy thinks right!)

Boy thinks life has never been better. 

Boy would not change a thing.

Boy loses girl.

(After lots of alcohol and deliberation with the "help" of other enabling boys,) boy wonders what he ever saw in girl...

V. 2:

Girl meets boy.

Girl thinks boy is ok. Not outstanding, but cute, girl guesses. Girl decides boy is alright.

Girl likes when boy gives girl attention (sometimes).

Girl knows boy likes girl.

Girl thinks she has fallen in love with boy, too.

Girl decides she likes boy, but girl knows that boy likes girl more than girl likes boy.

Girl doesn't like when boy thinks he is the main character. (Girl thinks The Strokes are pretty generic)

Girl doesn't like when boy acts like girl is the supporting role of his story.

Girl knows boy is just like every other boy girl knows.

Girl realizes she knows boy better than boy knows himself, or so he believes.

Girl realizes she does not actually love boy.

Girl realizes boy does not actually love girl.

Girl realizes boy only loves the idea of girl. 

Girl realizes boy only sees the fantasy of girl.

Girl realizes self-growth is impossible with boy. 

Girl realizes she is not born for someone else's growth- not even (or especially) boy's. 

Girl realizes she is a real-life person. 

Girl realizes she is her own self. 

Girl realizes she has a story, too.

I was really obsessed with the MPDG ideal in middle school, thanks to my cinephile cousin. So when I watched 500 Days back then, I was enraptured. I still appreciate the direction of the cinema, so would still recommend the movie. Just maybe not the plot. 

Around the same middle school cheesy moviegoer era, this was my favorite video to watch of the co-stars, Zooey Deschanel and Joseph Gordon-Levitt. This will never not be cute

Umbrellas, passing time, and community

 How do we know where we fit in?

The world is a busy place. Society is a busy crowd. If you stop for a moment, people aren't going to wait for you to catch along. Or will they?

What drew me to the painting "The Umbrellas" that we analyzed in class today was the overwhelming sense of community. Hear me out.

There are so many umbrellas. Dimensionally, in the front, in the back, over heads, above top hats... but how do none of them collide? How does everyone just know where to walk and where to hold their umbrellas so that they're each in planes just slightly different and separate from each other? The man in the right corner with the top hat, I thought, was the underdog/hero of this artwork. Him, holding his own umbrella farther from his head so as to make room for the people below him (also holding umbrellas), his arm upwardly stretching and sacrificing his comfort in the process so he can make way for the others around him.

After the final bell rang after class, I was still thinking about it... and I noticed parallels nearly immediately (living in a painting? jk), in the school hallways. Just hear me out again.

Amidst the cadence of passing period traffic, I’ve mastered the tempo of weaving in and out of crowds, clinging onto the backpack handle of the person in front of me who remains unaware of his support to a stranger. I love the chaos and the choreography and direction it requires, of artfully choosing when to seize space, of overlapping arms, and a collective squeeze of letting one more person in. There aren't as many people as selfless as the man with the top hat, I will admit... different time periods, I guess. Nevertheless, marching towards the main staircase and forging across intersections, each of my peers seem to know exactly where to be, and exactly where to go. The bustling crowd perfectly clears a path for me, and everyone else around me, just when we need it most.

Everyone hates traffic, I know. But sometimes even in the most frustrating things there can be small glimpses of joy. I'd even go as far to say a comradery (except for when people cut me off- but that's an exception we won't consider in this idealist perspective). In the painting, today, rushing towards the never-ending hallway, in the school parking lot, at Shibuya Crossing, in Times Square... there exists community in the commotion. With every person not acting as an individual, but rather each as a puzzle piece or a tile of a mosaic, we begin to work towards something shared, something to which everyone contributes, something complete.