Pointless Complexity

Ever have a complex relationship with someone with whom you have virtually /no/ relationship, or is it just me?

One of this one guy's friends is this person who elicits strong reactions from me. Now, I have met this person exactly once -- he and his boyfriend came over one evening. He promptly drank some Scotch and fell asleep on our couch.
For several hours.
His boyfriend was more game; He, some other guy, my friend Emily and I all played Katamari Damacy and drank heavily til late in the night. All told, it was a nice night. And there was some bother about this person switching from all-night to daytime work, and him suffering from insomnia, blah blah blah.
I was not amused.

Which is a shame because, truth be told, he isn't a bad person. He's smart and witty, and nice to look at, to boot. I read his livejournal often even though I probably oughtn't to; it's friends only but I can use this one guy's cookies to bypass that. Generally speaking, I don't hate him. Anything but.

Except on the rare occasion when I do. Something he'll write something or this one guy will mention about him will absolutely convince me he's scum. Really low-down, awful and hideous.
A strange amount of negative passion for someone I've met once.

I've noticed it before and sort of shrugged it off as either some personality quirk or some odd factor in him.

...but then yesterday, it hit me. He also looks like someone, someone I could never quite figure out. I remembered yesterday.
He's a dead ringer for the first boy I ever asked out. It's remarkable.
I had a massive crush on this other boy turned me down -- terribly. It was June and when I asked him out -- for an inoffensive coffee no less, not a seedy trip Legends or a tres cher French dinner -- he told me he had to study for his exams. I was humiliated and angry. And while I can't remember his name any more (it's probably floating around this site somewhere, but I can't be arsed), I remember exactly what he looked like.

Somebody's friend.

Odd bit of passion and anger solved, then.

Addenda

Two other things:

1) It took about two days for this post to germinate.
I must have been thinking about it before I fell asleep last night because I had a GG-tangential dream. In it, Paris Gellar was a friend of mine who owed me a favour. Whilst staying at my Grandmother's, my contact lenses became so dirty they wouldn't adhere to my eyes.
I convinced Paris to drive me home to get new ones... Only to be stopped by the dastardly forces of Civil War Re-Enactors. We fled through a series of leaps several hundred feet high.
What does it mean? The answer frightens even me.

2) The cancellation of GG brings an end to my prophecies concerning the show. Which is a right pain. For the sake of posterity, here they are:

In Season 8:
A) Luke and Lorelei get back together, ultimately marrying. Or at least moving in with
each other. Jovial and intolerable bickering ensues.
B) April joins them to become the new, young, Gilmore Girl. They will, upon occasion,
be joined by Rory who married Logan, got a newspaper job and moved to the West Coast. Her return probably comes during Sweeps.
C) Richard finally kicks the bucket, leaving Emily free to star in a sit-com spin-off, where she
goes into business with Mrs. Kim and travels the country in a trailor selling antiques to
rubes.
D) Related to C: The writers, tempted beyond control by Kelly Bishop's musical theatre
background, will write an all-musical episode.

Gil Me No More

So I heard the other day that the New CW is cancelling Gilmore Girls.

I wasn't surprised.
And I wasn't very upset. That /did/ surprise me. After all, Gilmore Girls has been my favourite American television show for years.
But let's face it: it jumped the shark a while ago. This season has really been driving that home. For the first half of this season, 4 or 5 episodes would pile up on the Tivo before this one guy or I could be bothered to watch them; even then, it was more out of commitment to the Remembrance of Things Past* than actual pleasure.

So what went wrong?
Well, you can't blame the CW, its new network this season, which formed from the unlikely merge of the WB and UPN...
Can you blame the leaving of Amy Sherman-Palladino, the show's creator at the end of last season? Well, probably. Quite frankly a lot of the problems cropping up in the show look a lot like actors getting to much head and writers without much self-control.

The biggest single issue, I think, is (was?) the show's growing lack of respect for its viewers. Early on, the show hummed with energy; the dialogue was lighting fast and its references -- to pop culture and to more, umm, obscure areas of culture -- were just as fast.
And unexplained. The show just assumed you got it. And it assumed you could put the parts of a plot together without being babied.

Now? Hah!
The scenes of the show this season, virtually every one of every episode drag. Drag like a bad SNL skit with Derek Jeter. Too long. Too obvious. Everyone says exactly what they mean, means exactly what they say and go to almost absurd lengths to make sure you at home get it, too.
That'd be the end of oh, say, complexity and subtlety.

Concomitant with that was the lack of discipline on the part of the writers. Luke and Lorelei's romance was built up over the course of years. It was defined by its complexity and depth.
And then it was essentially over in a night and the two acted like children for a year.

...and then Lorelei took up with Christopher. Which had all the cleverness of a divorced six-year old*. And then that ended, too.
It seems a lot like a group of writers sitting around and saying "What'd be fun?" rather than "What will develop our characters?" or "What would be really interesting drama?"
"Fuck it," says they, "A marriage in Paris would be pretty!"

What really told me things were going down was Logan. Flimsiest pre-text of a character he is -- and oh, so perfect for Matt Czuchry as an actor -- they were pretty stalwart about not showing his flesh. Much to my chagrin.
Fortunately and tellingly, a recent episode went to pains to show him in bed, in his boxers, discussing (slowly, natch) his need to be dressed in front of Lorelei.

...and then it hits me. Shark jumped = the time Rory picked Logan over Marty.
Saw him nude his first time on camera. Rory always was a smart girl.

*1) Nice little season 1/2 present for you there.

*2) Another little sly joke there for you.