Season 2, Episode 10 - Take My Breath Away

Original Airdate - November 24th, 2002

Manny is down so bad for Craig. She’s thinking about him constantly, and having weird musical fantasies whenever she sees him. Emma’s mind is elsewhere. Her mother just proposed to Mr. Simpson and she’s feeling pretty good about the whole thing. She tells Manny to take a page out of her mom’s book and throw away gender roles. If Manny likes Craig, she should ask him out.

Manny sees Craig talking to Ashley and decides the moment is now. She walks up and announces that she likes him. She’s instantly embarrassed and walks away but he chases her to say he likes her too. They make plans for a date that night. Joey is surprised to hear Craig is going on a date with Manny, not Ashley, and thinks she may be a little young for him. But hey, what’s a year?

For anyone who cares, which is no one, Joey has broken up with hottie girlfriend Bianca.

Manny gets ready for the date at Emma’s, in part to avoid her strict parents. Emma is acting just like her mother did last year when Emma went out with Sean, and it’s cute. She snaps a picture of the couple and sends them off. Craig is like cartoon big-eyed awooga awooga about how good Manny looks, so surely this is going to go great.

The next day at school, Liberty and Emma push Manny for information on the date. Manny is totally heart-eyed. It was perfect, and even if they didn’t talk about it, Manny is sure they’re basically boyfriend and girlfriend now. Meanwhile Jimmy and a newly bleached blonde Spinner ask Craig his opinion, and he says the date was super weird.

I’m going to cover this a little differently from the show, which cuts between Manny’s version of events and Craig’s. It’s a great device for the episode and would be a lousy device for a synopsis.

What happened: The pair arrived at the mall to see a movie, and was surprised to find there was a carnival. Manny wanted them to ditch the movie and do the carnival. She enthused about cotton candy and Craig bought her some. She fed him a piece, putting it directly in his mouth. They played a carnival game and Craig won Manny a stuffed horse. When Manny took her turn, the ball bounced and hit Craig in the head. She looked at his bruise and it was definitely the moment for a kiss, but they did not kiss.

In Manny’s head, all of this was super romantic. The carnival was a fun surprise. The cotton candy moment was kind of sexy as her finger brushed his lip. The horse was a sweet gift. The lack of kiss feels off, but Emma and Liberty convince her that Craig was just being a gentleman and was concerned about getting her home on time.

In Craig’s head, this was incredibly awkward. He wasn’t into the carnival, but Manny insisted. She shoved a stupid amount of cotton candy in his mouth, and he almost choked. The ball really walloped him in the head. And the whole time, Manny was kind of intense. She would not stop talking and it felt very childish. By the time they reached the moment for the kiss, Craig was not feeling it and had realized Manny reminds him of his half-sister, Angie. This is a nice little meta nod to the actresses playing Manny and Angie being sisters.

The problem isn’t that Manny is too young by any objective measure. It’s that she’s kind of immature. Her goo-goo eyed romance and fantasy brain are leading her to come on too strong, and she doesn’t even realize she’s doing it. Craig comes to try and talk to Manny about the date when Emma is nearby. He’s not able to be honest, but Emma is picking up on the vibe.

Emma tries to help Manny and tells her to calm down and pull back, but Manny thinks Craig is just moody and her patented cheer will perk him up. She decorates his locker, including pictures of them together, and Craig is not amused. Ashley walks up since Craig offered to sign her petition to ban GM foods, and Manny seems stupid when she doesn’t know what those are or why they’re controversial.

Manny tells Craig he shouldn’t talk to Ashley, and it’s too much. She’s being jealous and possessive after one date. One weird date. Craig finally admits that he’s not feeling it and doesn’t think he likes her anymore. Manny is crushed.

Our B story follows two characters who are not series regulars! Ellie and Marco bond over their fondness for Edward Gorey. Ellie has a big time crush. Hazel also has a crush, but Paige isn’t so sure about Marco. He’s so cute, he’s so sweet. There has to be some reason he’s single. Hazel ignores her and goes for it anyway.

Ellie is too shy to go for it directly, so she sends Marco secret admirer emails. Marco assumes they’re from Hazel. He talks to Ellie about the emails, confused why someone would choose to tell him like that. When Ellie comments how hard it is to tell someone you like them, Marco understands that feeling, but misses the hints.

Ellie sends him another message telling him to meet in the Zen Garden, ready to come clean. Marco shows up, but he’s surprised to find Ellie, not Hazel. Ellie interprets this as him wanting his admirer to be Hazel and rushes off, embarrassed. Marco finds her and explains. He was expecting Hazel, but he was planning on telling her he wasn’t interested. Because he’s interested in Ellie. He asks her out and she’s very happy. And surely this will all end fine considering Marco is definitely gay.

First dates are always awkward. Engaging with someone on a romantic level who you only knew casually or as friends or not as all always requires a bit of an adjustment. We’re all super aware that feelings can be hurt, and super unsure how we’re going to interpret the vibe. Of course we are never our best selves.

But I think this is something that has gotten dramatically worse and stupider. First, when we all shifted to finding new first dates on apps. And more intensely when we’d all been doing that for a while.

I have complicated opinions on dating apps. I think it’s good to be exposed to people you wouldn’t otherwise meet. I think it’s nice, especially for women, queer people, and introverts to be able to meet people in a way that feels less threatening. And it’s nice to be interacting with people who are all (in theory, depending on the platform) looking to date.

But right there, that last sentence, demonstrates for me where things start to break down. What it means to be looking for a date can be extremely varied. Are you look for something casual or serious? Monogamous or not? How fast do you want to move? What’s the end game? Are we going to have babies? We are expected to know that and present that so that people can better assess if we’re a match.

And I think that’s far too mechanical. It is good to know what you want and it’s good to communicate that to people, but I think it’s weird to communicate that to someone who you haven’t even really met yet. It’s restricting and it weeds out unexpected connections.

This manifests on the date. Pre apps, you were likely on a date with someone you had met in person and felt out a vibe with or perhaps someone you were set up with. The date was about putting that pre-existing vibe in a romantic context and feeling out the chemistry. You discovered what the other person was looking for over time and had a lot more room to figure out what you wanted from this person specifically, as opposed to both of you being completely certain what may want from your ideal partner

When you meet on an app, this is flipped. I’ve already sussed out what I want and if you fit that bill. I’ve already put you in a romantic context. I am meeting you now to see if the vibe matches that. It makes me rigid, it makes me close minded, and it makes me go looking for very specific markers of success.

To me, Manny’s mistake on her date with Craig is that she has a defined picture in her mind of what a successful date will look like. She was looking for fantasy romance, which looks like songs and suits and flowers and opera gloves. This demands Craig play a role, one he may or may not be suited to, and that Manny also put herself in a role.

The result is inevitable awkwardness. Instead of letting Craig be himself, she is pushing him into these awkward contrived scenarios. Instead of being herself, she is acting like someone else which is only going to put him off. She would have been much better served putting less pressure on this situation. She has liked Craig when he’s just being Craig and he has liked her when she’s being herself.

We do this in online dating. Instead of showing up to receive the reality of a person and show them ourselves, open to whatever vibe may or may not exist, we show up with an agenda. We are looking for this list of qualities, that will manifest in these behaviors. We are looking to feel a very particular way. We are expecting a profile we were drawn to, not a human we’ve never actually met. We feel awkward when that person isn’t the profile we expected or doesn’t click all of the boxes. And we prime ourselves to feel awkward about whatever we may feel.

Attraction is complicated and strange and fun. It can be sudden and intense, or a subtle tug that grows over time. It can be hot or it can be warm or cozy or confusing. It manifests in completely different ways with completely different people. And it can only grow and blossom when we behave in the way that is appropriate for that relationship. That is connection by connection, not person by person.

Too often, first dates have become about seeking a very specific vibe that will feel a very specific way. We are setting ourselves up for disappointment. And the more time goes on, the more we bring that disappointment on the dates. We become more rigid, more particular, and bring less of ourselves into the interaction.

Dating should be fun, especially early on. It should be breezy and untethered from any script. Structure should exist only in activities to help us ease into companionship. You don’t achieve any of that when you go in carrying a mental list of requirements and the baggage of all of the people you thought would meet them and didn’t. You end up acting like a less real version of yourself.