I’m currently sitting in my bed in Wilmington, Delaware. I’m on a leave of absence and today just so happens to be a day in my schedule where I don’t have any obligations at either of my internships. My sister is somewhere in the house completing her last year at Princeton over Zoom. My friends from school are either in their own classes or busy doing their own leave of absence activities. My two friends (count, 2) who are in Delaware still during the fall semester are both busy.
This is the stuff of nightmares.
I would characterize myself as an extrovert. So much so that I’ve actually enjoyed disputing Amazon Shipping on the phone over the last few months. The point is, I wilt without social interaction. But recently, it’s been harder and harder to get access to person to person interactions, especially if you’re trying to adhere to all of the standards that have been set in place the past couple months.
However, I have discovered one thing that helps the time pass by (whether it’s healthy is left up to your own judgement). I have taken up a practice of watching television shows and projecting myself into the fictional world that I’m watching. It’s a little bit like just spending hours creating scenarios in your own head (which everyone already loves to do), but it takes all the pesky work of creativity out of it because television shows are written for you!
So without further ado, here is my very own personal list of shows that I love pretending to be in and why!
1. Love Island
I feel like this is completely self explanatory. There’s no way I’m going to pass up the opportunity to imagine that I’m in some sun soaked villa, with the hottest people in the UK? I fall in love with the other islanders and get so invested in their journeys already, so it’s not hard for me to start associating with them on a deeper level. As if we were all in the villa. Plus I love picking up UK banter along the way.
2. Parks and Rec
This one is nice since I now work in a government office. I feel like I can relate to the happenings and personalities displayed by legends Leslie Knope, Ron Swanson, and the illustrious April Ludgate. Aubrey Plaza is also a Delaware native, so I feel a special bond to her from that alone.
3. Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt
I feel like this one is especially prescient to the moment in which we are currently living. Kimmy had been deprived of contact with the outside world for 15 years when she was trapped inside a bunker by a crazy reverend. In fact, she thought that the outside world has ceased to exist completely due to being told that she had lived through the apocalypse. Despite this obviously horrific experience, Kimmy has the brightest outlook of anyone in New York. She’s simply just happy to be alive. Watching this show during quarantine fills me with hope for the period of time after the COVID era.
4. It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia
I absolutely love this show because I think it perfectly captures the insanity of a group of friends who simply feed off each others’ chaos and irrationality. All of their schemes, arguments, and banter are so entertaining and easy to get wrapped up in that you slowly start to identify with them. Then, of course, you begin to have a moral dilemma because they are all incredibly self centered psychopaths. Objectively horrible people. Yet so infectious…
5. Grey’s Anatomy
I know this show is notorious for mental anguish and arguably overstaying its welcome, but it’s a juggernaut for a reason. I didn’t think that there is anything in the conceivable universe that could make me contemplate becoming a pre-med, but then Grey’s Anatomy rears its unrealistically attractive head. Oh, to be an obnoxiously good-looking surgeon in Seattle surrounded by other beautiful surgeons. It’s nice to imagine sometimes. But there’s some relief in knowing that I can bow out of that life at any point I choose, rather than being cursed to the perpetual tragedy that the characters have endured over the last decade and a half.