Why Lorelai Gilmore Is Not Such An Idiot, by me

I’ve been rewatching some Gilmore Girls lately, and the episodes I’ve happened to watch have made me thinks about one of the show’s OTPs. Not the OTP, I am more than happy with Luke and Lorelai (Lukelai? Loreluke? Whatever). I’m talking about Emily Gilmore’s OTP. Lorelai and Christopher.

Christopher, for the uninitiated, is a character who pops up a lot over the course of the show’s seven-season run. He kind of has to, because he is Lorelai’s high school boyfriend and the father of her child. The other thing that Christopher is, is kind of an asshat. Season 1, he shows up and is an irresponsible tool who hasn’t matured one iota since Lorelai refused to marry him at sixteen. Season two, Chris has ostensibly got it together, and is ready to make a real go of it with Lorelai and Rory as a family. Until he finds out that his other girlfriend, Sherry, is totally pregnant. He then gets abandoned by Sherry, sucks at single parenting without Lorelai’s help, and eventually marries Lorelai before finally screwing that one up as well. For elaboration on why Chris is a total douche, see www.televisionwithoutpity.com. They do snark better than me.

Looking at that track record, it’s easy to call Lorelai an idiot. Why does she keep taking him back? Will she ever learn? (The final answer to that one seems to be yes, praise the Lord). But really, doesn’t everybody have a Christopher lurking somewhere in their past? I know I do. Fortunately, for most of us (myself included) that somebody didn’t knock us up and so will probably not be hanging around screwing with our heads in sixteen years’ time.

But still, think back to that guy. That early, if not first, love who was just… totally useless. Fun, for a while. And you liked him enough to really try and believe it could work. But in the end it just couldn’t, and afterwards, you had to admit that you always knew that breaking point was coming. But even with all the clarity of hindsight there is a nagging doubt, a fear that if he came back and promised that things would be different, that he would no longer be in love with your best friend/sleep with other women/be emotionally retarded or whatever it was, you would fall for it.

That guy is the secret shame that every girl carries with her into womanhood. He is the memory that makes would be feminists squirm in discomfort. And he is ubiquitous. Seriously, I doubt anybody can make it past the age of twenty-five without finding that one guy who made her act like a total idiot, and could quite possibly do it all over again were he of a mind to. It’s terrifying and more than a little embarrassing. It doesn’t even matter how well you know him and his faults. And it’s easy to identify him. He’s the loser you’re still complaining about to your friends when the period of time since the break up is longer that the relationship itself was. If you haven’t seen him in that time, you’re in deep shit.

Still, it seems there is little anybody can do to escape this. So consider him a rite of passage. Be glad that you’ve survived him intact. Some of you will get off more lightly than others (I myself suffered only fair to moderate humiliation and emotional scarring). And beware of him in future. TV is more than just entertainment – it’s an education (that’s what I tell myself as I waste my life, anyway). And if we can learn anything from Gilmore Girls, aside from drink more coffee and buy a lot of scarves, it’s this; never, EVER go back to your Christopher. Even a shared child isn’t enough to make it work.