An Ode to the Manic Pixie Dream Girl

She was conflicted. No. She was conflict incarnate. She suffered from MPDG (Manic Pixie Dream Girl) syndrome, a diagnosis offered up by the latest asshole in her gallery of rogues. Citing her initially welcoming nature, he called bullshit on the close of their nocturnal interaction. A healthy serving of whiskey in, she resembled more raving Mr. Hyde than refined Dr. Jekyll, foaming at the mouth and raving about his inability to adapt and "just go with the flow, dude." The fucker didn’t even have the decency to prescribe a proper sedative for her. That doctor role play from the other night didn’t come with an Rx Pad after all.

His description wasn’t untrue. She was a kinetic creature, her steps faerie-light as she intruded upon your personal space, every upward pull of her facial muscles subtle and slight, as if her knowing eyes guarded secrets of the old world. You let her in (into your humble studio apartment, maybe even your heart) after she convinced you that she was, indeed, the right one. Her weapon of choice was her grin, the charmingly misshapen pearls strung together by benefit of pink gummy canvas. You lay down your arms (just low enough to wrap around her waist, of course)—now disarmed because of her petite frame and because of, what you assume, is next-to-nonexistent chance she would disappoint.

Well, fuck. She proceeds to disappoint you, but not the readers of this narrative, who crave the common-enough conflict. Her story is standard—basic, even (that’s a venti Pumpkin Spice Latte). As if waltzing directly from the Blu Ray of 500 Days of Summer you’ll never admit to buying, she is the archetypical Manic Pixie Dream Girl. Regurgitating obscure quotes from obscure films that she watched in an even more obscure cinema (the one of Vine where the screen is the size of fifties television set but there's stadium seating!) All whimsy and hogwash. All disappointment.

She will fail to act as your appropriate foil. She will fail to guide you to epiphany. She will not become your offbeat muse, her finger pads drumming against your table will not unlock the secrets to life, love and the source of your personal loathing. She will fail to navigate you to anything better.

Instead, you will steer her. Steer her away from the apartment you pay too much for—and you certainly had no plans of adding her insanity to the monthly spend Mint so carefully tracks for you. You slam the door in her face, the chipping off-green slab offering the punctuation to your rejection of this modern-day faerie. She will turn away from the door—which, at the beginning, offered so much romantic promise, so much hope for what could be. She turns away from it now and directly into the waiting embrace of her own internalized conflict. Suddenly, she will become intimate with discomfort. Conflict that lusted for her attention but was always ignored in favor of the latest Instagram poetry that perfectly described her wanderlust—but never spoke of her need to actually stay rooted and improve herself. And so, Discomfort and its comrade-in-arms, Growth, had hid—their collective gaze predatory as they watched and waited for the opportunity to capture her and hold her captive.

She will challenge herself to closely scrutinize her life (through prescription lenses she acquired from Warby Parker, half-off) until the next sailor falls off his ship and onto her land. She will sing her siren song (a Rilo Kiley jingle from "way before Under the Blacklight") and the cycle will repeat. She is lovely in her unintended self-delusion; she is unrelenting in her ability to remain unchanged, though she knows herself to be vapid.

After all, she is a creature of lore—truly only living in the recesses of your mind, in the neon trees of your dreams.