#3 Everybody wants this

The healing power of rom-com

A few days ago, I finally started watching the new Netflix show the internet can’t stop talking about. You know, the one where Adam Brody, playing a hot rabbi, falls in love with Kristen Bell’s sex-positive podcaster (originator of the iconic episode title ‘Dildos and Dildon’ts’. I mean, come on). 

From their episode one meet-cute, Nobody Wants This progresses as you might expect. Noah, the hot rabbi, shows himself to be ideal in pretty much every way, and Joanne - a millennial career-woman with a tough exterior - starts to slowly trust, and open up to, the new man in her life. 

Helped in no small part by how, quite early on in the series when Joanne is freaking out about balancing her new relationship with the demands of a busy job she loves, Noah says those three little words. No, not ‘I love you’… ‘Your work matters.’ 

As soon as I heard him say them, I snapped to attention. He thinks her work matters?? Oh my fucking god. If my own reaction was anything to go by, I can only imagine working women everywhere hitting the space bar and leaping out of bed with all the vim and vigour of Maria in the Sound of Music calling to her lonely goatherd. Frankly, the hot rabbi had given us all cause for celebration. 

Because I love my job. Really, I do. I’m lucky that even on the days when I find it tiring or annoying, it’s creative and stimulating enough to keep me interested. But it’s been a problem in my relationships.

The people in my life have sometimes been confused about why I give so much of myself to work. It’s been called a toxic relationship - at times, I think, with reason. I haven’t always had good boundaries around it, especially earlier in my career. I would work late, cancel plans at short notice, and disappoint people I cared about as a result. But honestly, back then, I didn’t really think that was a problem. I’d only just managed to get a foot in the door. Why wouldn’t I give work everything I had, including my heart?

Lately I have realised the error of my ways. A series of very demanding projects showed me that I was going to need more than work to make me happy. Jobs aren’t very good boyfriends. You can give and give and not get anything back (the same can also apply to real, human, boyfriends.) If you’re not careful you can end up robbed of your energy and time without much, or anything, to show for it.

But just because a love affair isn’t requited, doesn’t mean the feelings aren’t real. Which is why when Noah said to Joanne that her work was important, that felt - to me at least - really meaningful. He wasn’t dismissive, or jealous, or annoyed that her love for her job felt big enough to compete with their time together. He accepted it. Took it seriously. And the fact he did gave me such a high that, emotionally speaking, I’m still yodelling in my dirndl.

Nobody Want’s This’s Noah is being hailed as the internet’s newest boyfriend, and I get it. He is extremely nice, balanced, hot - and a spiritual leader. But he is definitely a fantasy. Those of us outside the Nobody Wants This-verse might be doomed to a cycle of dating app downloads and deletions until one by one each of us gets married and/or dies.

But I hope that some men watching might pick up a couple of hints from the rabbi. About how lovely it is to show someone you’re all in by caring about their work. If they care about it, that’s an open invitation for you to, too.  

I don’t want to overblow Nobody Wants This. It’s a typical rom-com and it plays out like one. But who cares? Two flawed people finding connection in a busy, lonely world… everybody wants that.