Hidden Quirkiness

"I think the girl in the story should be cute and quirky like ME!"

Without thinking, I got up from my chair and stared Molly in the eye. "This is a waste of my time." There was no wink, no chuckle, not a hint or irony. I was offended by her idea on so many levels that it didn't matter to me that she had just had her heart trampled on by her ex-boyfriend ten days earlier. I didn't care that she wanted to write a screenplay to validate herself from the pain she was going through. I cared only about two things: my name being attached to this terrible idea and her misunderstanding of the word "quirky". Basically I was being an insensitive asshole, and I was doing so in the middle of a Corner Bakery. Bravo.

I got into this mess on accident. I ran into her at the grocery store earlier that week and messaged her a few days later just to say 'hi', since I hadn't seen or talked to her in six months. I didn't know her that well, but thought that I should be polite and ask her how she was doing. I was expecting the conversation to be short and sweet but instead I set Molly off for about half an hour about her personal life. I quickly went from barely knowing Molly to knowing too much about Molly, including the fact that she went away from her keyboard for about ten minutes to cry. In the middle of this, she told me she wanted me to write a screenplay with her and I immediately agreed. It's hard to turn down a girl who's telling you she's crying and not eating on a regular basis.

Unfortunately turning her down would've absolutely been the right thing to do. This "great" screenplay that she wanted us to write was turning into a screenplay about what had just happened in her life and I couldn't fathom this idea on a couple of fronts. One, I didn't think it was healthy for her to be focusing on this relationship, barely ten days removed from it. Two, I honestly didn't think it was a very compelling story, at least as a love story. I know I only had her side of the story, but this guy sounded like a grade A turd.

Then there's the quirkiness.Molly isn't as quirky as she thinks she is, which is devastating, because she bases her attractiveness on this non-existent quirkiness. She believes that saying "bad news bears" when she thinks a guy is sketchy equates as quirkiness. It wouldn't be an absurd opinion if Molly was a movie character, like Juno MacGuff, but Molly has to live for longer than an hour and a half. Juno's quirkiness is dependent on being frozen in time. You don't get to find out that later in life she will speak like a regular person and wear pants suits to work. Quirkiness is about things you can't change in your life, like my mom's fear of getting onto an escalator. It's not about a catch phrase you use when you see a guy who looks like a date rapist.

So not only did Molly want to make a screenplay about her extremely recent failed relationship, she wanted to make it inaccurate, which would be fine if she didn't demand the character be just like her. I tried to explain how writing a screenplay about her recent breakup would be counter-productive for her emotionally and she didn't seem to understand. I asked her if she had seen Purple Rain and she told me she hadn't. I was trying to explain that one of the film's messages is that you should leave your personal life out of your business, but she seemed to be only fixated on the fact that Purple Rain stars Prince. "You mean Prince was in a movie? That guy that dresses like a girl?" I might've tolerated her offensive ignorance if she made some sort of reference to Dave Chappelle's impression of Prince, but nope, not from Molly.

At this point, I just tried to teach her the basics of screenwriting. I talked to her a little bit about structure, and a little bit about formatting. Every time I brought up a new concept, she would connect the concept to the movie Garden State. "So the inciting incident in Garden State is when..." "So the scene at the pool in Garden State would be written 'EXT. HOUSE'...?" No offense to Zach Braff, but Garden State is hardly a movie that should be held on a pedestal for an aspiring screenwriter. She then proceeded to whip out a Screenwriting for Dummies book and Garden State aside, it seemed like we were making some progress. Then she told me how easy she thought screenwriting was and how she didn't understand why I thought writing a screenplay is a long process. She didn't understand she was being arrogant, that she was being offensive to someone who has been writing screenplays for the last five years and was desperately trying to do it for a living. Now I have no idea whether I'm a good screenwriter, but I think it's safe to say that I'm better than someone who hasn't even tried. I wouldn't go into my doctor's office with a stethoscope on and tell him "You know what? I'm going to give myself a physical. I've got a Doctor for Dummies book."

Then I realized I was quick to judge and that Molly does have a quirk. She has the uncanny ability to make me have absolutely no sympathy for her.