Of the four main men on The Big Bang Theory, Raj Koothrappali, played by Kunal Nayyar was
perhaps the most socially awkward.
Raj's difficulties with women resulted in some painfully uncomfortable situations — one
of which involved Raj doing the absolute worst thing he's ever done.
“You went out with him, I didn’t.”
Throughout The Big Bang Theory, Raj the self-proclaimed romantic of the group tries to have a successful
relationship with a woman, but falls horribly short for a number of reasons.
On more than one occasion, he requests that his parents organize an arranged marriage
with a woman from a "good Indian family."
And every single one of them ends up failing miserably.
A list of his other romantic mishaps include: dating two women at once, rifling through
a girl’s closets and drawers when she leaves him alone in her house; leaving one girl for
another after the briefest of meetings with the latter, and then coming crawling back
to his ex when a girl turns him away; pushing women way out of their comfort zone; referring
to women he's not attracted to as "fatties and uggos"; and spying on his fiancée and
that's not to even mention him fantasizing about his friends' wives and girlfriends throughout
the show, even almost hooking up with Penny one night.
“What were you thinking?”
Easily the worst thing Raj did, however, was to Issabella.
On the season 10 episode entitled "The Brain Bowl Incubation," Raj meets the beautiful
maintenance worker when she comes into his lab at Caltech to clean late one night.
Despite the instant spark between them, it becomes clear that Raj has a problem with
Issabella's job.
After hitting it off with Issabella in his lab, Raj h elps her clean the bathrooms.
During their cleaning session, he decides to ask Issabella out on a date, but she explains
she doesn't have time to date while working two jobs.
Before leaving the bathroom, he tries to convince Issabella to change her mind, and she again
turns him down.
The rest of the gang quickly picks up on the fact that Raj has met someone,
“You’re dating somebody who is it?”
But Raj makes a fatal and cruel mistake when he fails to correct their assumption that
she's also an astronomer.
Uh, what?
For a supposedly intelligent man, this is a stupid move.
Still, Raj cooks up a plan to surprise her and get the date he wants.
It's a little pushy and desperate after she's already turned him down twice in the bathroom.
When Issabella next walks into his lab, he's set up a romantic dinner complete with flowers
and a tablecloth for them to enjoy.
Things seem to be going swimmingly... and then Howard walks in and casually mentions,
“Oh, yeah, the astronomer.
Raj told us about you…”
You can actually see Issabella's face fall as she instantly realizes Raj has lied about
her job, and rightly points out that she doesn't need to waste her time with someone who's
embarrassed by what she does for a living.
She makes a quick exit from the lab, dragging her cleaning cart with her as she goes.
Raj tries to go after Issabella and apologize, saying he couldn’t believe how shallow he
was being,
“Honestly, I didn’t think your job would bother me...and I hate myself for that…”
Fortunately, Issabella has enough respect for herself to walk away from someone who
clearly won't respect her.
Raj knew what Issabella did before he even started pursuing her, and continued to chase
her knowing full well he would never be comfortable telling his friends that she's a cleaning
lady at the university and not another scientist.
What exactly did he think was going to happen?
It's such a blatant lie that there's no way anyone will convince us Raj truly thought
their relationship would be able to go anywhere without the lie coming out.
The shame he felt over Issabella's job is even more ironic when we consider the fact
that, at that point in time, Raj was still living off his father's fortune to pay for
his rent, maid, car, and credit card bills something he seems oddly proud of.
“No, I grew up with a house full of servants and now I have a cleaning lady who is lovely
and .who I have great respect for.”
At least Issabella is making and living off her own money.
Raj really has no leg to stand on with his classism here.
“In my defense, I have a car whose doors open up like this… oh I’m sorry…”
It's never acceptable to make someone else feel ashamed about what they do, and Raj hit
rock bottom with his treatment of Issabella during this episode of The Big Bang Theory.
Watching him lie to his friends about Issabella's job makes it easy to understand why Raj has
so many problems with women.
Check out one of our newest videos right here!
Plus, even more LOOPER videos about The Big Bang Theory are coming soon.
Subscribe to our YouTube channel and hit the bell so you don't miss a single one.