My rebound was ending it with me and I was taking it… poorly. After a 9 month relationship with a total psychopath, I thought I had finally nailed it with this guy. He was in a few words: a really nice boy. He was the kinda guy you could potentially take home to Mom. While my ex-boyfriend dominated every room he entered with a booming voice, bespoke suit, and cocaine habit; here came Hipster Doctor Doolittle practically right onto my doorstep. He was soft spoken, played acoustic guitar, and instagrammed Los Angeles street animals. He moved to California to write but it wasn’t working out as easily as he wanted and he got along well with my dog. I heavily romanticized his most meh qualities and his even more meh short stories. I thought I liked him most because this new guy was the polar opposite of my ex-boyfriend in every respect. 

I went from a ghost pepper chilli sauce to a ramekin full of garlic aioli. He was soft, creamy, and comforting. One might say even a little bland.

It didn’t dawn on me that it was a terrible idea to emotionally invest in this much mayonnaise until it was much too late. 

Looking back, I was too busy unfairly projecting all of my unresolved trauma onto him to address the unhealthy dynamic I had created. He was nice enough to take it for a few weeks until he buckled under the pressure of all of my feelings.

Even after all this time, I still think of him as an overall a-okay kinda dude when I think of him at all. He hasn’t been cancelled and thrown into the recesses of past ex-boy toys. Getting involved with each other was a bad idea. He saw it first and decided to handle it with the emotional dexterity I’ve come to expect of twenty-something men. We’ve moved on and comfortably no longer speak to each other. And I think that’s the best you can hope for, barring actual friendship, when it comes to someone you’ve seen naked. 

Honestly, he’s an alright guy. Except for just one thing.

His suffocating niceness was making this “breakup,” for lack of a better word, practically unbearable. Just rip the band-aid off, man. He finally slayed me by claiming that he still wanted to be my friend because,

“You’re so interesting and different. You’re not like any girl I’ve ever met before.” 

And to this day, I think that is the most genuine and most backhanded compliment I’ve ever received. 

I’m… interesting. And different. And that was it.

Oh. He said the quiet part out loud. 

He elucidated a common preconception I run into frequently with men. I was branded a Manic Pixie Dream Girl. Again. All quirk, no depth. First coined by film critic Nathaniel Rabin in 2007, a Manic Pixie Dream Girl “exists solely in the fevered imaginations of sensitive writer-directors to teach broodingly soulful young men to embrace life and its infinite mysteries.” It’s a definition in flux because Rabin doesn’t depict the girl herself, but describes the audience watching her.  During her however brief appearance, she imparts something of value to their understanding of the universe and their lackluster life. In short, it’s a lazy character trope meant to propel or save the starring man’s character development. Manic Pixie Dream Girls exist for the other party’s consumption, not to honor the agency of the girl in question. She is an empty vessel to be filled with others’ hopes, wishes, and dreams for a better, more exciting life. Forever a supporting character, never a leading lady. 

Even though a Manic Pixie Dream Girl is by definition a fantasy, movies show us that she can be loosely depicted by a series of cliches. She loves indie music, whimsy, and has any number of idiosyncratic hobbies, from befriending squirrels at the park to baking her own bread. She probably has bangs. No matter what she has on her outsides, whether she’s a neon-haired sprite or a quirky librarian with bottle pop glasses, she has one purpose: to catalyze male transformation. 

She is interesting and lives differently, whatever that means. She is not like other girls. 

The fetishization of interesting women hollows out the best part of us: the complicated, messy, decidedly non-ethereal parts. It’s where the guts and glory of women truly lie. Isn’t that where the truly interesting stuff lives? After all this time, I can still feel the burning frustration because I was mislabeled once again. I never felt like I wore enough polka dots or blow-dried my bangs often enough to fully accept the label of Manic Pixie Dream Girl. That’s not who I am. Surely I am not that empty.

I am a Third Culture Kid, tried and true. I’m a blending of cultures, not a reflection of what your life lacks.

As a Third Culture Kid, the total unfairness of being pigeonholed as a man’s IRL Manic Pixie Dream Girl still upsets me for two important and undervalued reasons. It dismisses the most “interesting” parts of my story as mere consequences of my parents’ career. And most importantly, it completely ignores the reality that my personality and interests expand beyond my passport. I would have never developed hawkish haggling skills and strong opinions on airports if mom and dad decided to stay in Southern California, instead of shipping us to one post-communist dictatorship after another. I’ve luged the Great Wall of China, been offered three camels and a flock of sheep for my hand in marriage by a Bedouin, and accidentally sat on a Salvador Dali sculpture. I have a full Harry Potter-themed sailor tattoo sleeve and recently purchased a food processor just to make pie crust more efficiently. And none of those things were for a man, yet all of them are objectively weird, verging on quirky. But nothing too surprising for a Third Culture Kid.  

Granted, there is a shocking lack of Third Culture Kid representation within American pop culture. Barring that Ruth Van Reken book from the ‘90s, we have Anthony Bourdain’s work and the occasional Vogue article or Buzzfeed listicle. That’s about it. There is no Third Culture archetype for anyone to reference. And that’s tough, especially as we grow up. In lieu of other models, Third Culture Kids are defined by our resilience and ability to adapt. Each of our personality quirks, talents, joys, and tastes are hardwon through rambling taxi rides in foreign countries, crying in airports, and eating excessive quantities of street food.

If I’m being generous, I would like to believe that they just don’t know. Claim ignorance for me, bro. I could almost believe that they truly haven’t met women like me before. Honestly, I think he called me “interesting” and “different” because he thought that’s what I wanted to hear. Those words sound nice at face value. And for a long time, that would have satiated any self-esteem issues my conversation with him would have inevitably caused. 

Now, to be deemed not like other girls by a man who barely knows me is dismissive and irritating because I am exactly like other girls and proud of it.

To assume other women, ones who weren’t raised in a series of post-communist dictatorships, are not interesting or different and don’t have rich inner lives that you can fall in love with feels like a giant Fuck You to women everywhere.

I refuse to undermine another woman’s value, no matter who she is, in the hopes that a man will find me, my story, and my habits more likable. My tastes and talents were not designed to attract disaffected men whose lives lack zing. Gross. There are so many captivating, fascinating, full-fledged, authentic women just like me, anyways. I swear to God, we’re not that hard to find. There’s just one caveat: we’re not fantasies and we aren’t made to save you.