4B — Thursday, December 10, 2015
the b-side
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
D
ear Gillian,
There is a boy — a
very cute, smart and
well-dressed boy in my class.
While I would normally go for
it consider-
ing these
attributes,
he’s also got
that, “I’m
top-tier and
super-intim-
idating”
swagger.
How do I
approach
this? Star-
ing lustfully
across the room is not going so
well. We have had absolutely no
contact and he hasn’t expressed
any interest, but there just seems
to be something there (am I
crazy?).
– Drooling From Across The
Room
Dear Drooling,
Crazy? You mean just
because you believe in a
romance between you and
someone who doesn’t know you
exist? Yes, you might be crazy,
but not in a bad way. Let’s start
with some lyrics. Here are
the opening lines from Alicia
Keyes’ “You Don’t Know My
Name,” which does mention
“crazy:” (The music video is
everything you’d hope for from
a early 2000’s production.)
From the day I saw you
Really, really wanted to catch
your eye
Somethin’ special ‘bout you
I must really like you
’Cause not a lot of guys are
worth my time
Oh baby, baby, baby
It’s gettin’ kind of crazy
’Cause you are taking over my
mind
And it feels like ooh
You don’t know my name
And here’s Antônio Carlos
Jobim’s “The Girl from Ipane-
ma,” a hit in the ’60s and one
of the most covered songs in
the 50 years since — there’s a
great, soulful Amy Winehouse
version:
Oh, but I watch her so sadly
How can I tell her I love her
Yes, I would give my heart
gladly
But each day as she walks to
the sea
She looks straight ahead, not
at me
Tall and tan and young and
lovely
The girl from Ipanema goes
walking
And when she passes, I smile,
but she
Doesn’t see. She just doesn’t see
But don’t feel too crazy,
Drools, because you and your
boy are precisely where every
single love affair in the history
of the world began — brimming
with private passion and ooz-
ing with pure potential, but
otherwise, nowhere. You are
the secret admirer, like Shake-
speare’s Viola in “Twelfth
Night,” cloaked in a pretend
disinterest. The question is how
to de-cloak.
First of all, don’t let the
top-tier swagger dissuade you.
From Psyche’s betrothal to a
supposed monster (actually
Cupid in disguise, but not the
point … ) to Ron and Herm-
ione’s romance that overcomes
her towering superiority in
potions class and everywhere
else, love often deals in non-
superficial traits — charm,
sincerity, perseverance and
humor are surely among them,
but they are innumerable. Your
challenge will be to summon
your strengths, your most
attractive qualities, and get
them into his view. How do you
approach this, you ask?
You don’t have to be the
Daily’s liberal arts advice
columnist to know that you
and Swaggy, although you’ve
never spoken, have something
obvious in common: the class!
I’ll get to the point of this in a
moment, but first, a couple of
words of caution.
Drools, this might not work,
so give it your all, but don’t
get obsessed. Don’t cling like
Velcro to a couple of passing
smiles like the protagonist Pro-
fessor Gustav von Aschenbach
in Thomas Mann’s “Death in
Venice.” He becomes erotically
obsessed with a beautiful young
boy, and stays in Venice stalk-
ing the lad despite the Cholera
epidemic, of which he becomes
a statistic. In the critically
acclaimed 1975 Francois Truf-
faut film “The Story of Adele
H.,” Victor Hugo’s daughter
becomes irrationally obsessed
with a military officer and does
some world-class trans-con-
tinental stalking, certain they
will marry. Of course, he thinks
she’s a lunatic and she ends up
spending 40 years in an asylum.
Point is, erotomaniacal obses-
sion is never a good look and
always end badly.
As I said, you’re in a good
place across the room. We often
imagine love at first sight in
more grandiose settings, like
walking along the Seine, rid-
ing a wave in Waikiki, or on
the steps of a grand museum.
This sometimes happens.
Often, however, it’s those we
see everyday in our apartment
buildings, regulars at our favor-
ite coffee shops, or like you: in
class.
“L’Amour de Swann,” one
section of a larger work by Mar-
cel Proust, details the beauty
of quotidian, everyday love.
Charles Swann begins to love
the mundane things about his
lover Odette and takes plea-
sure in her everyday rituals
and actions rather than the
idealized beauty and glamour
he used to be attracted to. I
wouldn’t take this relationship
as a model, for it proves to be a
painful projected illusion, but
Proust brilliantly explores the
ways in which a person can
permeate our own day-to-day
experiences.
So, as long as you remain
grounded and don’t begin to
creep around this guy’s life,
you’ll be good. I’d advise you to
build an approach around the
class itself: suggest a pre-finals
study session or a term paper
critique swap, or even just ask
for a day’s notes you may have
missed. Find a class-centered
way to start talking to this boy,
preferably in a cozy coffee shop
over some lavender-honey lat-
tés, and take it from there. Cra-
zier things have happened.
Send an email to DearGillian@
michigandaily.com or
anonymously here describing
a quandary about love,
relationships, existence or their
opposites. Gillian will attempt to
summon the wisdom of the arts
(literary, visual, performing) to
soothe your troubled soul. We may
publish your letter in the biweekly
column with your first name (or
penname). Submissions should
be 250 words or fewer and may
be edited prior to publication.
CULTURAL CURES COLUMN
Dear Gillian: Searching for love from the
other side of the lecture hall
GILLIAN
JAKAB
EPISODE REVIEW
Warning: Our favorite TV
couple may be splitting up. In
this week’s midseason finale of
“The
Mindy
Project,”
new
parents
Mindy Lahi-
ri
(Mindy
Kaling, “The
Office”)
and
Danny (Chris
Messina,
“Vicky Cris-
tina
Barce-
lona”) have a
heated argu-
ment
about
kids and Mindy’s duty as a
mother.
Mindy, a successful OB/GYN
and unconventional mom, isn’t
one to stay at home with the
kids. As she explains to Danny,
the “Peanuts” kids are growing
up just fine without the con-
stant supervision of adults. But
Danny takes a different view:
“Charlie Brown’s 10 years old
and he’s bald and he has no
friends. Yeah, he’s doing fine.”
There are other bones to pick
between the two parents, too,
like the fact that Mindy still
owns a private million-dollar
apartment, though she spends
most of her time with Danny
and Leo. Complaining, Danny
swings low by saying that the
Virgin Mary, perhaps the most
famous mother of all, didn’t have
a separate apartment in West
Village. Mindy snaps back, “If
Mary had an apartment as cool
as mine, she probably wouldn’t
have been a virgin.”
Jokes
aside,
a
reflective
Mindy enters a flashback of
the couple’s first meeting at
Shulman and Associates, very
“When Harry Met Sally”-esque.
Revisiting
their
uncomfort-
able first encounters and their
mutual loathing of each other
in the months that followed,
Mindy is able to again see the
flaws in Danny, but also how
they overcame their arguments:
like when Mindy insists that she
move a giant armoire into her
new office and Danny agrees
that if it fits, it’s meant to be.
Back in the present, a teary-
eyed Mindy brings Leo’s crib to
her apartment for a test. When
the crib fits in the room, Mindy
takes down the “For Sale” sign
from outside. Does this mean
Mindy and Danny are no lon-
ger meant to be?
- HAILEY MIDDLEBROOK
A
The Mindy
Project
New Episodes
released
Tuesdays
Hulu
HULU
Don’t let
the top-tier
swagger
dissuade you.
You might be
crazy, but not in
a bad way.