- We all crave on some level love and acceptance.
Many of us want to share our lives with somebody.
Many of us want to have a family.
There's a lot of heartbreak along the way.
A lot of rejection, a lot of disappointment.
Whether we like it or not
we can all relate to Michael Scott.
(upbeat music)
- No question about it. I am ready to get hurt again.
- I actually believe that. Oh my gosh. Oh man.
- Michael Scott, this is Jan Levinson Gould.
- Just Jan Levinson.
- No Gould? - No.
- How are you? - I'm good. How are you?
- Good to see you. - Nice to see you.
- Okay.
- You're obnoxious and rude and, and, and stupid.
- You complete me.
- [Jan] I am taking a calculated risk.
What's the upside?
I overcome my nausea, fall deeply in love.
Babies, normalcy, no more self-loathing.
Downside? I date Michael Scott publicly
and collapse on myself like a dying star.
First off, Michael, this is a salary negotiation.
- You give me a good raise or no more sex.
And then when you said you definitely didn't wanna have kids
who had it reversed back?
- Okay. So obviously Michael and Jan are
in an incredibly unhealthy place.
He is all about her.
She is using him as a crutch to get over her divorce, right?
He is definitely a rebound relationship.
It's not about him.
It's about not being alone
and that's never a good place to start.
I like to tell people that the best place
to start a relationship is when you don't need one.
You have to be okay to be on your own. Otherwise,
you could be deceiving the person that you're with,
cause you don't even really want to be with them.
You just don't wanna be alone.
And that's definitely what's going on with Michael and Jan.
- Snip, snap, snip, snap, snip, snap!
You have no idea the physical toll
that three vasectomies have on a person.
- What do you wanna do about Jan?
- I wanna break up with Jan.
We need to talk.
- Oh my gosh!
- I thought you said this was a costume party.
- And then she gets a boob job
and he's like "we could stay together". So shallow.
- Of making me
- His real life wife!
- your husband.
- What is this? This is so weird.
- I don't understand.
No, Carol. You walk out that door and it is over.
- I know.
- I would like everybody to meet my new girlfriend.
- So, so what he did is he took a family picture
of her and her ex-husband and their kids on a ski trip.
And he, and he photoshopped his head onto the body
of her ex-husband like, this is her new family.
So she breaks up with him like, that's
- My new girlfriend.
- I put a mark on her arm.
- So these are just.
- Like, to tell them apart. I don't. I know.
Do you need a ride?
- So he's doing what a lot of us do.
You know, the old best way to get over somebody is
to get under somebody else.
Like casual, meaningless relationships.
And I've never really understood that.
I mean, other than like the short dopamine boost
or feeling wanted, or feeling desire, like,
it just makes you feel more empty.
Because oftentimes you've gone
from someone who's been hurt and used to using
and hurting somebody else.
And that's not gonna make you feel any better.
Get it together, Michael.
Ah, Meredith is drunk.
- I'm setting Michael up with my land lady.
- She's awfully drunk, though.
- She's really sweet. And it's whatever,
I just can't take Michael like this.
- Are you Michael Scott?
- Is who Michael what?
- Oh, I'm sorry.
I'm supposed to be meeting someone named Michael.
- Oh, that's not. Yeah. I'm not.
- Michael?
Michael?
- I will be honest. The dating has not been going well.
- This is Holly.
- Hi. - Hi.
Yeah. Right. Okay. Well they hired a female Toby.
- Man, someone doesn't like HR.
Well, look, I'll let you get back to work,
but I really look forward to working with you, Mr. Scott.
(upbeat music)
- Holly is the best thing
- So Holly is making him,
Great fit. Great chemistry.
- Thank you so much for saying that.
- [Michael] Did you see that? Did you see it?
Did you see what? Wowee.
- A lot of Michael seems too good to be true.
- No, I did not know that Michael was dating Holly.
- Hey.
Are you crying?
- No.
- Allergies?
- No.
- (mumbles) You're not supposed to date in the office.
So you go somewhere (mumbles)
- There's too much distance.
- Oh no, no, no. It's gonna work. It'll be fine.
- (mumbles)
- I think I'm gonna go back with Darryl.
David. You listen to me. Why'd you send her away?
That, God! You knew I liked her
- (mumbles)
- and you just sent her away.
A concierge is the Winnipeg equivalent of a geisha.
Do you want to get some breakfast or something?
- [Concierge] I'm so tired.
- Okay. I am ready to start dating again.
- Oh, we did it.
- Woo. Wow. I was so nervous about this.
I don't think I ate for three days.
- Is he okay?
- I just came here hoping to meet somebody.
You're 58 years old.
- Uh, huh.
- Congratulations.
- And he hooked up with Pam's mom. Again,
- If she's too young for you
and I am not robbing the cradle.
- But he just keeps doing, he just keeps doing this.
Like, Holly didn't work out for, you know, reasons outside
of their control, but she was a great fit for him.
And we, I know I did this.
I had people that I dated that I thought it was,
it was gonna be great, and then it didn't work out.
And you know, I quickly moved on to somebody else
just cause I didn't wanna be alone.
Just cause I was hurting.
And Michael hurts Pam's mom
because she falls for him and to him, it's just casual.
She's, in his mind, too old for him.
And he never should have led her on like that.
And this is what happens
when we are thinking mostly of ourselves.
The issue of thinking mostly
of ourselves is we hurt other people.
And then we feel worse about ourselves than when we started.
And some pain is unavoidable in dating, right?
People get their hopes up. You want this to work.
It doesn't. That's unavoidable, but you can still be decent
by not leading other people on intentionally.
You could still be decent by being honest.
And you could still be decent by making choices
to date or not to date people based on
"What are my motivations here?" And "Why am I doing this?"
- Robbing the grave.
- This is my friend, Julie.
- Hello? How are you?
- Good, hi.
- So Pam was right
- About what?
- About you two hitting it off.
- Michael Scott is on a date.
- Hello. - Hello.
- Hi. - Hi.
- You wanna pay 400 bucks to refelt this table?
- Yeah, why don't you send the bill to 23 I don't care Lane.
- I'm sorry.
- No, no, Nope. Nope.
- This was taken two weeks ago.
- Who's the guy? Who is it?
- It's you. I'm married.
- Holly Flax, she comes from the Nashville branch.
- What, what?
- Yeah, she'll be starting next week.
If you have any questions about the transition
just let me know.
- Hold on. Holly's coming back here?
Hi. Oh.
- Huggie monster.
- No, not the huggie monster. I don't wanna die.
I don't wanna die.
- Michael. You have to let this go.
I'm with someone else. I don't feel that way anymore.
- Oh really? With this other guy, you don't have any problem
with a long distance relationship, do you?
- Oh my gosh. They're so cringe together.
- That is what is the matter with me.
- You know how you say something over and over
and the words start to sound weird?
Going to be just fine.
Just fine. Just fine. Just fine.
I just think we need to cool things down for a while.
Michael?
- She's very perfect for him and he raised a great point
about the long distance relationships.
See, what I do like that we,
what I do like that we don't pay attention to a lot
is Michael finally, with Holly towards the end,
starts to grow up and he starts to be direct.
Instead of with Jan, he wouldn't be direct.
He would largely just kowtow
and play to do whatever he could to placate her
cause he wanted her to stay, and here he starts
to have self respect, and he starts to stand
up for himself and what he wants, he's honoring her choice,
but he's also saying, Hey, this hurts.
And in any relationship you need to have a voice
or you'll just get walked on.
- I just missed you so much.
- I missed you too.
- Really?
- Yeah.
- Can I kiss you?
- Yeah. - Okay.
- And some people say that it's not romantic to ask.
I think it's a great, it,
I think it shows great respect for boundaries and consent.
I think it's beautiful.
And I love this and Michael,
towards the end of his relation, I mean
towards the end of the show,
when he finally lands with Holly and they get married
and everything, he works through a lot of his insecurities.
A lot of Michael's terrible behavior
throughout the show has been based on insecurity.
How do you prepare yourself for a healthy relationship?
You work through your insecurities and you don't wait
for somebody else to come along who will fix them.
You find your confidence in doing things that matter to you.
You find your confidence in building healthy relationships
with friends and family.
You find your confidence in developing your talents
and working on your weaknesses.
And that's what Michael does.
And it lands them in a beautiful place.
If you enjoyed this, I break down one
of The Office's other great love stories, Jim and Pam.
Not their beautiful courtship, but the time when
their marriage almost completely fell apart,
which I think is one of the most realistic, gut wrenching,
and ultimately, beautiful arcs I've ever seen on television.
Check out this episode right here.
Do you relate to Michael's journey
for better or for worse in any way?
Let me know in the comments below
what character's romantic struggles speak to you
on The Office, or on any show.
Let us know in the comments below, and until next time,
keep shining because we need your light.
Aw, here's the Jim and Pam video
I was telling you guys about.
Wanna snuggle up to it with a little blankie? Spoon it?
You can be the big spoon, it's all good.