Season 3, Episode 13 - This Charming Man

Original Airdate - December 10th, 2003

That’s right, this episode aired before the last. I assume the switch-around was mostly to keep the Holiday episode as close to Christmas as possible, and it works fine. I’m glad to be watching in this order though. I think it’s helpful to have a smidge of distance between Manny and Craig’s break up and what we’ll begin on Friday.

Emma and Chris are still flirting, and Emma is still pissed at Sean. Sean and his crew have a new member, hot girl Amy. She’s hot for Sean, and they’re being a little much. Making out in math class levels of much.

It’s almost Simpson’s birthday, and Christine is throwing him a party. She bought a new used laptop to replace the stolen one, and recruits Emma to help transfer his files. Christine encourages Emma to bring Chris to the party, and we learn that Chris broke up with his girlfriend. Emma isn’t sure. She doesn’t want to be the rebound. Christine wonders if the real issue is Sean.

Emma insists, to Chris and to her friends, that she is over Sean completely. She doesn’t even want to engage with the rumors that he’s been stealing stuff at Degrassi. She’s mad at him, but wants to believe he wouldn’t sink so low as to rob Simpson. But then, during her environmental club meeting, she realizes that someone has stolen the school’s DVD player. She confronts Sean and his crew, they deny it, and Sean plays some really lame “I can’t believe you would accuse me of that” nonsense.

I really hate how Sean is acting lately. He’s leaning so far in to this bad boy persona as to be infuriating. Also, a couple times, they refer to Sean, Jay and their group as a gang and at first I didn’t want to call them that, but honestly, this is what gangs are. A crew of teenaged idiots acting pretty recklessly.

Anyway, back to the episode. Chris walks up and tells Emma to ignore Sean. He asks Emma out and she accepts. They go on a date at the Dot, and it’s going well, until Sean and the gang walk in. Emma can’t stop eyeing them, so she sees them try to steal some chocolate bars. She exposes them to the manager.

Emma and Chris walk home, and she invites him to the birthday party. Jay rolls up to yell at her. She got them all banned from the Dot for life. Jay tells her to ignore them or they won’t ignore her, and makes a comment basically confirming that they stole Simpson’s laptop.

That night, Simpson and Emma are both struggling to sleep, him because of chemo and her because she’s thinking about Sean. Simpson is struggling against the sluggish laptop, and Emma implies she knows his other laptop was stolen. The next day, Emma approaches Chris with a plan. It’s up to them to make sure Sean and the gang pay for what they did. Jay won’t crack, but Sean is the weak link.

Emma is crumpling up an old photo of the two of them that she found in her locker when she spots Sean carrying a strange cardboard box. She tries to follow him, but he catches her. He acknowledges that their break up was rough, but says she needs to mind her own business. Reminder that he did, in fact, steal her stepfather’s computer because he felt she was judging him.

Chris runs into JT at the Media Immersion lab, and they start talking about Emma. JT basically confirms his fears. Sean messed her up bad, and JT isn’t sure that Emma’s next boyfriend will be anything but a rebound. Emma interrupts them, saying that they need to convince Raditch to search Jay’s car. The laptop is long gone, but the DVD player is probably still in there.

Chris and Emma meet with Raditch, and Emma lies. She says that she saw Jay and Sean putting something in the car. Raditch calls the police to search. They find nothing, but Sean gets heated at Emma. He knows she tipped Raditch off. Raditch tries to interrupt them, and Sean tells him to go to hell. Sean gets two months of Saturday detention.

Emma is thrilled. They did it! Chris is confused. They didn’t find the laptop or the DVD player. But Emma does a big ole Freudian slip and says Sean’s detention means he’ll pay for “what he did to her.” Chris clocks it and tells Emma he doesn’t think their relationship is a good idea.

At Simpson’s birthday, Christine gives him a very large and very fake cake that is decorated to look like a computer. Emma tells Simpson that Chris isn’t coming, and Simpson tells her that if he’s worth it, he’ll give her another shot.

Emma finds Chris at the mall and tries to clear the air. She tells Chris she really likes him, but also acknowledges that she’s still pretty heartbroken about Sean. That said, hanging out with Chris is making it better. Chris is happy to hear that, and they rekindle their burgeoning romance. They’ll be together for the rest of the season until they break up during the summer for unexplained reasons!

Over in Grade 10, Spinner, Paige, and Jimmy are getting ready to start Driver's Ed. Spinner is really nervous, but Paige is cool as can be. Nothing ever gets to Paige, right? Well there’s one exception. Instead of mean old lady instructor Ms. Gonzalez, the trio gets a new, handsome, young, male instructor, Mr. Falcone. Paige has an instant crush and gets nervous, totally bombing their first lesson.

The next day, Spinner and Jimmy make fun of Paige for her poor driving, but Hazel instantly clocks her. At lunch, she teases Paige about having a crush. Jimmy thinks it’s hilarious, Spinner does not. During their lesson, he starts being rude and combative with Mr. Falcone. He gets so worked up that he isn’t paying attention to the road and runs into a parked car.

Paige goes to the Dot to reassure Spinner and tell him that he has no reason to be jealous. She may have thought Mr. Falcone was cute, but she’s locked in with her honey bee. Spinner says he changed their instructor to Ms. Gonzalez, and Paige laughs and says that’s fine. Now I though being possessive and controlling was supposed to be a huge red flag, but I guess that only applies if you’re also an awkward nerd.

I’ve mentioned it once or twice or too many times during this essay project, but I went through a break up last year. In the immediate aftermath of our breakup, I felt an incredible sense of relief. We’d been circling the drain of disfunction for a while. I felt free of a bad cycle. Sad, but free.

And I had no problem at all being around my ex. We ended up at a bar with our friends the weekend after we broke up. I was nervous going in, but not as much for my feelings as for my uncertainty about how he would behave. But it was chill. We were cordial.

I ended up talking to a friend of mine at the bar who was shocked we were around each other. He told me he felt we should really take some space. Maybe even a few months. I thought that was dramatic. We weren’t going to be talky talky jokey jokey, but we could be around our mutual friends. The breakup has been the right move.

I was so fucking wrong. Over the next several months, our proximity brought all kinds of frustrating emotions to the surface. Sometimes I would feel hurt or annoyed that he engaged with me differently than he used to. Other times I would feel hurt or annoyed that he treated me the same.

He started dating someone new pretty quickly after we broke up. That brought on a new flurry of emotions. Jealousy, sure, but not primarily. I was angry. I was exhausted. I was delighted by the perceived stupidity in a way that made me feel guilty.

And this whole time, I was extremely judgmental of myself. Why was I feeling so many feelings towards someone when the relationship ended for good reasons? I didn’t regret the breakup. I didn’t want to get back together. I was much less angry and confused and annoyed and frustrated than I was in the ending months of our relationship. Why couldn’t I just feel good?

I’ve always resented the concept of a rebound relationship. I think it’s a little closed minded. Sometimes you waltz out of your own relationship like Nicole Kidman waltzed out of her relationship with Tom Cruise. You are so ready to dive back in with someone new, someone who is a better match. I know people who met their spouses just a few months after ending years long relationships. I don’t think there are any rules.

I tend to blanch at the idea that anyone gets to tell anyone else when they’re ready to date again. The whole concept struck me as very outdated. Let people do what they want.

I went on a couple dates with someone a couple months after my break up. In hindsight, I got a little weird. I talked about my ex early, for one. But more than that, I tried to invite him into my life very quickly. I was ready to bring him to hang with my friends, and my ex, within a few days of knowing me.

He ghosted me, which sucked, but my reaction was very much over the top. Not to him, luckily, but to friends. I was livid one minute and playing detective the next. I kept talking through what could have happened and how it’s maybe not what it seems and strategizing on how I could get myself out of it.

I can see now how outsized the reaction was. It’s hard to believe that a person I barely knew could give me that big of a feeling. Clearly this was something I was carrying. It was exactly the thing that everyone talked about. I wasn’t ready. My head and heart were still somewhere else. I wasn’t ready to navigate the uncertainty of dating.

It took me the better part of a year to reach a place where I genuinely feel like I’ve moved past the relationship. And part of why it took me so long was that my friend was right. I needed space. I was setting myself up with too many moments that poked at old wounds. I needed time to stop being hurt. When I finally took that space, I was shocked by how quickly I moved to a place of anger, then slight disgust, and finally a warm acceptance.

But my friend was not right in the sense that I don’t think this is universal. I needed space and time. My ex really didn’t. I spent a decent amount of time during our period of space thinking about my ex’s new relationship. It’s still going strong, almost a year later. How could I have been so caught up in the breakup and he moved on so quickly? I spent a lot of time trying in a swirl of confusion, judgment, and insecurity trying to sort that out.

Where I’ve landed is that his relationship is a rebound relationship. My next one will be too. Because every relationship is a rebound relationship. We’re all walking into each new connection with the wounds of the last, going back to our parents. It’s why everyone needs therapy. There’s no point in worrying about whether or not you’re a rebound partner. You are, always.

And anyone at any time since their last relationship can be ready to deal with it or not. And that can change at any of time because of any number of catalysts. All we can really do is try and be honest with ourselves and what we’re feeling, and to communicate that to the people we’re dating. A person becomes a rebound, in the sense that they seem frivolous and/or doomed, not because of the timing, but because of how we’re able to connect around our baggage.

Emma’s problem in this episode is not that she needs to get over Sean, it’s that she needs to be honest that she’s not. Chris can either meet her there or not. And she can decide if she’s ready to receive that or not.

Time does not heal all wounds. It makes them less potent, less present, but all it takes is one little trigger to bring it back up again. Active processing can heal a lot, or at least make us ready to move with awareness of our wounds. I think it’s up to each of us to decide how much time and space we need for that.