Fun
Frisky
Nostalgic
Intense
Adventurous
Choked Up
Curious
Romantic
Weird
As a single human who is interested in dating and who has friends who are interested in dating, I’ve wasted a lot of time. I’ve spent hours pouring over texts, scrolling through Instagram accounts, and over-analyzing conversations in my quest to unravel the world’s romantic entanglements. And while watching my favorite TV characters date is fun, it’s often oh-so-wrong. Though it’s arguably the most absurd show on television, FXX’s Man Seeking Woman is the only show out there that truly understands the mundane drama of dating.
Created by Simon Rich, Man Seeking Woman follows Josh (Jay Baruchel), a relatively unremarkable and very awkward man looking for love. Baruchel’s Josh isn’t the secretly charming leading man we’re used to, a character who’s drop dead gorgeous though we’re supposed to pretend he’s the opposite. Rather Josh is aggressively regular — a little lazy, unambitious, sort of funny, and sort of forgettable. That’s the everyman leading us through Man Seeking Woman’s bizarre world, which transforms the most mundane parts of dating into over-the-top exaggerations. Swiping left or right on Tinder causes a person to go flying across the room. Conversations with parents about dating turn into Bond-esque torture sequences. One of Josh’s love interests literally dates the man who embodies perfection, Jesus Christ. It’s a weird comedy with a special effects team that should get a standing ovation every episode.
But despite how odd Man Seeking Woman is, the series remains the truest show about what it’s like to date in 2017. Most shows, especially comedies, have a hard time portraying relationships. Either characters’ love lives are too charmed, with protagonists drifting from one gorgeous suitor to the next because of minute “problems” (How many successful and attractive women did George Costanza break up with for some silly reason?), or they’re disastrous to an unbelievable level. These portrayals are initially flawed because they take characters who are already too stylized and try to force them into the normal dating box.
Man Seeking Woman takes the exact opposite approach, inserting pointedly normal and almost unremarkable characters into increasingly insane situations. It’s a weirdness that works only because dating itself is so weird. When you try to explain to a friend you get your work crush a coffee every morning, you sound a bit obsessive and insane. However, when Man Seeking Woman takes that concept and elevates it to press conference levels of importance, it has weight. The show brilliantly captures all of the dumb things you do and pushes them to the dramatic extremes you associate with dating. That concept paired with the impressive performances of Baruchel, Britt Lower, Eric Andre, and Katie Findlay in this new season, takes this quirky show from good to great.
Last night, the FXX comedy returned to our lives with the introduction of a whole new concept: a longterm girlfriend for Josh (Katie Findlay). Though the focus of the series has shifted slightly from dating to being in a relationship, the heart and wit of the series is the same. Through its barbed abnormality, Man Seeking Woman has unmistakably become the truest and most intelligent depiction of what dating feels like. No wonder I’m so stressed out.
