Hey all! While I figure out how to get my new Wordpress site to mail out posts, I’ve decided to switch the Substack to being a weekly roundup rather than the first source for essays. Starting next week, I’ll be sending out a once a week summary of posts, with links to everything I wrote that week. Want the daily newsletter?
I saw a meme once that pictured a bunch of classic MPDGs with their respective love interests and was captioned “Trans girls traveling back in time to comfort their depressed former selves.” And it was so galaxy brain that I will never be able to think of the trope in any other way.
Have you seen Ruby Sparks? It's not queer but refuted the MPDG from man's perspective. I'm sure much doesn't hold up but I loved it seeing it a few years after it came out. With Zoe Kazan and Paul Dano.
Someone once said that I have MPDG energy (there's also so much with mental health issues in them to, and that's an overlap w/ bi folks, I think) a decade before I realized I was queer. And I didn't hate it if we could add "with energy." Someone also said about Zoe Deschanel a lot of women we call "quirky" have ADD, and I think you can extend that to MPDGs and broader neurodivergence, as well. Same with perceived "ditzyness."
Oh shit, yeah. Once the MPDG term came into existence, I did see myself in it, and it felt so frustrating and shameful? I didn't want to be somebody's MPDG, but I am quirky, and bi (even if I hadn't quite realized it) and have ADHD/anxiety/neuro issues (not all apparent at the time), and I liked being friends with men (and dating some of those friends, but mostly just being friends). I wasn't doing it for them or at them, it was just me...but when I started having a hard time, there wasn't necessarily reciprocation of care...or I didn't trust there would be reciprocation.
I saw a meme once that pictured a bunch of classic MPDGs with their respective love interests and was captioned “Trans girls traveling back in time to comfort their depressed former selves.” And it was so galaxy brain that I will never be able to think of the trope in any other way.
Have you seen Ruby Sparks? It's not queer but refuted the MPDG from man's perspective. I'm sure much doesn't hold up but I loved it seeing it a few years after it came out. With Zoe Kazan and Paul Dano.
Someone once said that I have MPDG energy (there's also so much with mental health issues in them to, and that's an overlap w/ bi folks, I think) a decade before I realized I was queer. And I didn't hate it if we could add "with energy." Someone also said about Zoe Deschanel a lot of women we call "quirky" have ADD, and I think you can extend that to MPDGs and broader neurodivergence, as well. Same with perceived "ditzyness."
Oh shit, yeah. Once the MPDG term came into existence, I did see myself in it, and it felt so frustrating and shameful? I didn't want to be somebody's MPDG, but I am quirky, and bi (even if I hadn't quite realized it) and have ADHD/anxiety/neuro issues (not all apparent at the time), and I liked being friends with men (and dating some of those friends, but mostly just being friends). I wasn't doing it for them or at them, it was just me...but when I started having a hard time, there wasn't necessarily reciprocation of care...or I didn't trust there would be reciprocation.