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| photo from here |
The episode that surprised me the most, and continues to make me think about what it is to be a young, independent woman is "One Man's Trash" from season 2. In this episode, as everyone on the internet knows, Hannah goes to confess to a man (Patrick Wilson playing JoshUA) that she's been putting trash in his cans from her work and ends up staying for two nights.
This episode caused all sorts of controversy because Hannah looks like a fairly normal 24 year old woman, and JoshUA looks like a hot actor person. I have a lot of trouble with this sort of backlash for many reasons, most of which revolve around how stupid it is to assume someone like him would not like someone like her physically or otherwise. As someone who is not doing 500 squats a day, partaking in Crossfit, or otherwise going above and beyond to look like someone's idea of ideal I can say this episode made me happy to be watching t.v. and happy they showed this interaction taking place the way it did.
What stuck with me more than their physical relationship was their last interactions. Hannah tearfully admits that she just wants to be happy, and after JoshUA says of course, that's what everyone wants she explains that:
I made a promise, such a long time ago, that I was going to take in experiences, all of them, so that I could tell other people about them and maybe save them. But it gets so tiring, trying to take in all the experiences for everybody, letting anyone say anything to me. Then I came here, and I see you, and you’ve got the fruit in the bowl in the fridge with the stuff. … I realize I’m not different. I want what everyone wants. I want all the things. I just want to be happy.
In part this touches the core of my current existence. While I never made myself a promise to choose experiences over happiness that is the path of least resistance my life has chosen for the past several years. I choose partners, jobs, situations, based on adventures and how interesting they might be, not on how much joy and happiness they might bring me. I choose interactions that challenge me over those that are safe, and from those come exactly what Hannah/Lena Dunham are talking about, "so that I could tell other people about them and maybe save them".
In college I chose to date men who challenged my views on basically everything and at times that meant my views on my own self-worth. Finding someone who creates that feeling of safety Hannah is talking about, perhaps not physically but tactilely, the "fruit in the bowl in the fridge with the stuff" has been something I myself have avoided for a very long time. I never thought much about marriage, having children, or buying a house until the last year or so; I never wanted to admit I was so stereotypical in my desires for my life, so ordinary. That, I believe, is at the center of this episode — when it's right in front of you, no matter how hip and counter-culture you are, it's hard to decide to choose a life of experiences over a life with a full fridge, a nice partner and some normalcy.
I don't think Hannah, or I, can give up our love of these experiences any time soon but I do think admitting we want what most people want, happiness, a fairly normal domestic life is the first step towards self-acceptance. It's okay to want these things, it's okay.
