Jennifer Coolidge’s Character In ‘The White Lotus’ Actually Has Some Sound Dating Advice

In Sunday’s episode of HBO’s The White Lotus, Tanya McQuoid (Jennifer Coolidge) begins to unravel after a enjoyable, however serviceable sleepover with a fellow resort visitor named Greg (John Gries). Her anxiousness units within the morning after, when she tries to make plans to get collectively once more and he responds by… seemingly faking a coughing match. The panicky feeling builds till their second date, throughout which Tanya goes full meltdown, launching right into a refreshingly unchill rant about all her points and insecurities. It’s a susceptible transfer that’s surprisingly well-received by Greg, and, dare I say, somewhat inspirational to look at.

Tanya’s post-date spiral, although it approaches parody (the subsequent day she tells Greg, deadpan, “I’m going to go in and lay down on my mattress and simply wait so that you can textual content me”) will likely be acquainted to anybody who’s gotten too of their head after a hookup. “I simply know I’m going to get damage,” Tanya tells Belinda, the White Lotus workers masseuse and Tanya’s confidante, performed by Natasha Rothwell. She’s positive she’ll lose him as soon as he discovers her true self. “Each step alongside the way in which, I’ve to fret about, you already know, ‘Is he going to love the subsequent layer?’” she confesses. “On the core of the onion, Belinda, is only a straight-up, alcoholic lunatic!”

Nevermind that Greg’s just a few man: a Hawaiian-shirt clad, middlingly enticing, half-charming, half-jerk who works for the BLM — that’s the Bureau of Land Administration, not Black Lives Matter, to Tanya’s chagrin — and that is only a trip fling. The day after their date, she’s a large number, pacing outdoors his room, stalking him on the pool, and ditching Belinda mid-dinner the second he texts her to satisfy him for a drink. She’s a grown lady absolutely succumbing to her relationship neuroses, and it’s onerous to look at, if not for Jennifer Coolidge finessing each cringe second together with her maudlin hilarity.

However Tanya’s freakout surprisingly culminates in an in the end constructive dialog between the 2. Again on the sofa once more with Greg, Tanya pauses their makeout to inform him every thing on her thoughts — to disclose her inside loopy, “the core of the onion,” as she places it — and asks him to depart. She tells him she’s “a really needy particular person, and deeply, deeply insecure;” that each her mother and father mentally abused her; and she or he nonetheless carries round her useless mom’s ashes. She begins ugly-crying, ranting about being a “dead-end” and a “entice door,” even foisting the urn of ashes on Greg. “You’re f*cking loopy!” he says. “I’m, and there’s nothing I can do about it! Please get out!” she says.

However then, Greg flips the script. “No. I nonetheless wish to f*ck you,” he tells her. Again on the sofa once more, he reassures her by saying, “You’re probably not cuckoo.”

This isn’t meant to be an enormous romantic second—Greg most likely simply needs to get laid, and perhaps he’s even turned on by her “craziness.” I doubt that is the start of an incredible love affair, though I assume we’ll depart that to the subsequent (and remaining) episode. However I discovered it satisfying to look at Tanya lay out her injury so early on, and see Greg unfazed by it.

Her somewhat unhinged confessional is the antithesis of the “cool girl” ploy in relationship, the place girls flow and downplay their feelings, the thought being that the particular person you want gained’t get scared off in the event that they by no means see your messiness. However that cagey strategy isn’t sustainable; your insecurities and dysfunctional behaviors are going to disclose themselves ultimately, so why not get all of it out within the open early on as a substitute of discovering out later that you simply’re not appropriate?

There’s additionally the truth that “everybody has some form of ‘baggage,’ whether or not it’s from earlier relationships or household of origin,” Marisa T. Cohen Ph.D., relationship professional at Paired, tells Bustle.

Usually, what we’re anxious about revealing — a messy divorce, a power sickness, or a penchant for dramatic mom-related outbursts mid-makeout — won’t really be an enormous deal for the opposite particular person, Cohen says. On the finish of the day, we’re our personal harshest critics.

“There’s no ‘wait three months earlier than sharing one thing dangerous’,” says Cohen. “If you happen to suppose, ‘that is one thing they need to find out about me,’ you gotta do it as a result of in any other case you’re going to really feel such as you’re holding again.”

However in the event you can, perhaps don’t lead with a Tanya-style phrase vomit. It’s all the time higher to be calm and intentional once you talk your vulnerabilities to a different particular person, so that you don’t overwhelm or put pressure on them to reciprocate the identical degree of intimacy earlier than they’re comfy, she suggests. “You don’t wish to act from a spot of concern.”

Getting the discuss out of the way in which early on is finest: “It’s going to be in your thoughts and have an effect on your conduct in the event you repress it, and in the event you proceed to attend, [that anxiety] will worsen and worse,” Cohen says.

And hey, in the event that they’re not down with you and your injury? So be it, that’s good data so that you can know sooner somewhat than later. Might as effectively present ‘em the core of the onion they usually can see in the event that they just like the loopy inside.

Sources

Marisa T. Cohen Ph.D., relationship professional at Paired