Dear Luke Danes,
You and I have been apart for quite some time. The last time I saw you was at Rory’s college graduation. Sure, I’ve stolen a glance or two over the past couple of years: at the movie rental place, or in 2010, through really low-quality video streams. But we have finally reunited as of October 1st and I’m so glad.
Luke Danes, you are not just my Number One Early Aughts TV Boyfriend — you’re my Number One TV Boyfriend. Because of you, I developed an attraction to both flannel button-ups and eyebrows that take up a third of a man’s face. Sure, you’re probably 15 years older than me and you bear a strong resemblance to Sam the Eagle, but you’re still perfect in almost every way. You, you anti-consumerist, curmudgeonly, nagging hunk, have raised my expectations for what relationships should be. Some girls love that floppy-haired milquetoast Dean, with his puka shell necklaces and ability to build cars from scratch, and some girls love your bird-boned nephew Jess, with his tight t-shirts, surly attitude, and Dude English Major taste in “radical” male novelists. Some girls even loved Logan, with his bland good looks and his eagerness to absorb problems with money. And of course, there’s always that gorgeous, charming shitbird Christopher, the handsomest disappointment the sun ever shined upon.
Full disclosure: for a little while in ninth grade, I crushed on Dean pretty hard because he seemed nice and non-threatening. Also I was boring and had bad taste, okay? At thirteen, I bought three CDs because they were advertised on Dawson’s Creek. Don’t look to me for refined taste. Rewatching the show as an adult helped me realize that wow, I’m a grown up now, as Lorelei’s love interests were all far more appealing to me than Rory’s.
When I enter a relationship with a young man, I ask myself:
Will this guy make me a chuppah, even if neither of us seem to know what chuppahs are?
And if he does, will he put a goat on it? (I hope not, though; I really hate goats). And if the goat breaks off of the chuppah, will he fix it? (Again, I am really hoping this is a no goat scenario, but I’d be cool with a cat or a pug or something).
Will this guy make an ice skating rink in my front yard?
Can this guy bring large quantities of decent coffee into my life?
Can he see my face?
Maybe you thought you were hiding your secret fondness for banter under your crotchety demeanor and baseball cap. You always acted like you never cared, but you always did, deeply. You keep things: your dad’s mementos, horoscopes, anything that seems useful. You were the guy who would drive a girl’s daughter’s gross mattress all over town if he needed to. You were always, time and time again, the guy who Showed Up.
Until suddenly, you weren’t. We went through some rough times, back when you developed a secret daughter and an intense love of Target socks. And then, suddenly, you were gone.
But Luke Danes, watching you and Lorelei celebrate your engagement over Zima is still one of my favorite TV moments. Sometimes, when you watch a multi-season TV show long enough, the characters start seeping into your life, especially when you’re just a nerdy kid with high expectations and limited social skills. You know these fictional people and their neuroses so well that they feel a little bit like friends. By the time I was a teenager, I had already seen so many relationships and marriages fail that I didn’t have a lot of faith in them. But watching Gilmore Girls made me believe that I could hope for somebody who would love all of my loud-mouthed, coffee-guzzling weirdness, because I was seeing that kind of romance unfold on the screen. It felt like I could be brave, and funny, and loud, like Lorelei, and somebody could love all of those things about me too, when I was grown-up.
So thanks, Luke Danes, for being a devoted, emotionally stunted rando who always saw the best in people. While another TV hunk might capture my affections every once in a while, I promise that my TV-crush on Ben Wyatt is merely a ship passing in the night. You will always be my favorite TV boyfriend.
(Just kidding, Ben Wyatt, you know I love you too).
This post’s title image is courtesy of the combined Photoshop efforts of CC, who separated the hat from Luke’s head and stuck Sam the Eagle in the diner, and Kachi, who fit the hat perfectly onto Sam the Eagle’s head. Thanks, Kachi!
