I Hate Everyone But You
graphic by jenny Katz
Enemies to lovers, the snarky smartass and the overachiever, friends to lovers, and of course, the slow burn romance; these are the tropes that make our favorite couples in TV and movies our favorite couples. Couples like Jess and Nick from the hit tv show New Girl make us react in a way that we just can’t explain when they share their first deep, passionate kiss (We’re looking at you, New Girl season 2 episode 15). Why did our hearts beat out of our chests when Donna appeared next to Josh on the plane, why did a single tear roll down our cheeks when Ian learned that Mickey was his cellmate, and why did watching Patrick and David’s business partnership flourish into wholesome and real love make us feel like the sun had just come out after a Syracuse winter?
To put it simply, that shit is so romantic. In real life, relationships might look a little more like extended eye contact in the middle of Schine and a boy offering to sneak into your dorm through the window. However, in apartment 4D, your sardonic roommate with a soft spot for your antics grabs you in the hallway and kisses you like a coal miner coming home to his wife. This hopeless romantic will choose to swoon over the latter every time.
This leads us nicely into our first trope, and a personal favorite, “I hate everyone but you.” In 10 Things I Hate About You, the two prickliest students at Padua High School fall in love as the result of a messy scheme perpetrated by their classmates. Watching Kat and Patrick abandon their tough exteriors to be vulnerable and playful together is just free therapy. Nick Miller is a curmudgeon in his 30s whose comfort zone is sarcasm and panicked moonwalking, so his love for his ball of sunshine roommate Jess is that much more exceptional and beautiful. When Jess Mariano moved to Stars Hollow with just a book and a really bad attitude, it surprised him as much as anyone else when he fell in love with Rory, the bubbly overachiever who was his opposite in every imaginable way. Watching her stray from her manipulative, predictable, “nice guy” boyfriend to Jess was absolutely delicious because he hated everyone but her!!
Friends to lovers is far less dramatic but just as delightful. In Psych (side note: we don’t talk about Psych enough), Shawn and Juliet have a deep, unconditional friendship where they always have one another’s backs and Juliet keeps Shawn’s eccentricities in check. So, when they finally lean in for their first kiss, it feels like magic to see their pure friendship grow into something more in such an organic way. On Glee, Brittany and Santana seamlessly transitioned from friends to soulmates as they individually came to terms with their respective sexualities, adding a whole other layer to their friends to lovers arc.
On the much more dramatic end of the spectrum is the slow burn love story. Josh and Donna are in love from the moment they start working together which is highly evident to everyone but the two of them (plz watch The West Wing, we beg of you). A combination of their collective stubbornness and the timing just never working out keeps them apart for 7 excruciating and ~wonderful~ seasons. Obviously, Pam and Jim from The Office are one of the most evident examples of the slow burn. We watched Jim fall in love with Pam while she was engaged to the assclown Roy, then roles reversed and Pam pined for Jim when the timing failed them yet again. When the stars finally align and Jim pops into Pam’s interview to ask her if she’s free for dinner tonight, an angel gets their motherfucking wings.
Finally, enemies to lovers is perhaps the trope that gets the most attention. Because this trope is such a classic, let’s get literary with it! In Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, Mr. Darcy and Elizabeth Bennet absolutely despise each other from the moment they meet. They match each other’s quick banter and find the other obstinate, rude, and all-around unbearable. The things that they so loathed about each other, their sharp wits and stubborn unusualness, become the reasons that they fall in love. Love and hate are both emotions that require such passion, it’s easy to struggle to distinguish between them sometimes. In the moment that Mr. Darcy lets down his guard to extend his hand to touch Elizabeth’s, the reader is reminded that love is wild, unexpected, rarely simple, and tender in unforeseeable ways.
Send this article to the person in your WRT105 who always starts an argument with you in the breakout room and see if your Mr. Darcy is right in front of you!