If anything, he models dangerous stalker behavior

On November 6, 2018, the nation was embroiled in a national debate.

On November 6, 2018, I ignored that and focused on something that does not matter in the least: Fictional Television Boyfriends.

Twitter Darling Lane Moore posted an excerpt from her book onto Vulture, my bible, my pop culture IV source, my future employer hopefully.

“There Will Never Be a Man As Perfect As The Office’s Jim Halpert”

Nothing. N-o-t-h-i-n-g. Gets my tv opinionated blood boiling more than people defending Jim Halpert. So, I present to you, a point-by-point takedown of Ms. Moore’s thesis.

“But in my experience, Jim Halpert is as unattainable of an ideal as you can get because he makes even the most well-meaning dudes look like serial-killer bores and I hate it.”

Okay, first of A, nice qualifier of “in my experience.” That makes my opinion that, in my experience, if Jim Halpert were a nonfictional independent character, he would be an honest to goodness serial killer.

It’s physically painful to behold his existence, and I don’t feel like that’s an exaggeration.

It is.

His relationship with Pam is basically a fairy tale that seems like it could actually happen, so once you get out into the world of online dating apps and guys you meet at bars who think negging is cute, it’s reasonable to find that you’re very, very angry because you were told there would be Jims.

Oh, there are Jims, you’ll just find them bothering your DMs, or making a grand display of affection out of nowhere and then sulking and/or moving to Stamford when you decline his advances.

I don’t know how many times I have to say this: Jim Halpert Seems Good Because He Was Written That Way. He was written so all his actual selfish behavior works out for him in the end. It’s a cute story, I love watching them fall in love, I really do, but calling him the “unattainable ideal” isn’t just wrong: it’s dangerous.

I spent a lot of my childhood and most of my quasi-adulthood daydreaming about people harboring secret years-long crushes on me. I also harbored more than my fair share of secret, year-long crushes, that’s just what being a baby queer means. But if you are a cis white man who is conditioned to think you are worthy of everything you want, those secret, year-long crushes can turn into obsessions, and obsessions seldom work out well.

Take away the sitcom structured reciprocation of Jim’s actions and what you have is a recipe for stalking. Pure and simple. So when (straight) girls tweet “I want a Jim Halpert” it encourages boys to engage in these pining and destructive behaviors.

He met her and he knew and he acknowledged this and held out hope they’d end up together, even though she was dating some dickhead for a long time.

What normal people would do if their crush was ENGAGED (not dating! ENGAGED) to “some dickhead”: say “oh well” and put the crush on a back burner.

What Jim did: sulked, then dated Amy Adams because she looked like Pam. Amy Adams was a great person, even if she was in a purse selling mlm and still did cheerleading cheers in regular conversation. But what does Jim do? He dumps her as soon as Pam shows any flicker of hope for him, proving that Amy was just a pawn in his seasons-long game.

Jim, who is reliably calm and empathetic, no matter what happens.

Empathetic???? Where! Show me the empathy! Do empathetic people systemically gaslight their coworkers near constantly? Do empathetic people discourage their own girlfriend from moving out of a hotel room to a nearby street because it would be “like living together”???? I guess the only thing that matters in a male SO is how he treats you, not how he treats people as a whole.

When Pam’s veil tears at their wedding, he doesn’t tell her to get over it or panic, or just say “sorry” and move on. Nope, he compassionately cuts his own tie, thereby yet again doing anything and everything he can to make sure she’s happy all the time, like it’s his freaking job to make sure of it.

OR, hear me out: he is presented with an issue at his own wedding, so he makes it worse in response.

If his job was to make her happy, where was he at her art show? Why wasn’t he happy when she got the very expensive ipod at Christmas instead of his teapot full of cheap inside jokes?

Oh! And this is so fucking sad that it’s worth noting, but he actually asked Pam out on a date for dinner like a normal human being.

Local Man Gets Cookie For Doing Bare Minimum, more at 11. He’s Jim! He puts more effort into harassing Dwight than he does asking Pam out. I expect more from fictional leading men.

And even when she rejects him, he doesn’t get angry at her! There’s no angry tirade about how she’s a tease or a liar or a bitch. If anything, he freaking cries and BLAMES HIMSELF and apologizes for misreading signals.

He cries and blames himself because he did the wrong thing. He doesn’t get angry. Instead, he moves away and finds a new woman to carry the burden of his mistakes. Karen has to deal with all of Jim’s baggage because he wouldn’t do the right thing and communicate with someone he upset. And he did upset her.

When Pam is upset that Jim lifted her up at the karate studio, he starts to write her a formal apology email, but then does one better and buys her a bag of freaking Sun Chips and quietly puts them on her desk, expecting nothing in return, just so she knows he cares about her and would never intentionally upset her.

Yeah, except earlier in the episode, he asks her to do something mean to Dwight in return for Sun Chips, so it just looks like he’s paying her back for that. Also, do you know what’s better than wordless Sun Chips? Sun Chips and also a quick “Hey, sorry about when I physically handled you without consent and did not stop until you said no multiple times.” Doesn’t even have to be in an email. But knowing how Jim hates communication, he would have to do it in an email.

He’s totally happy to still be her best friend even if she never loves him back, which is just literally unreal, though it shouldn’t be. He’s not just being her close friend because he presumes one day they’ll end up together or sleep together, and you know that because for the first few seasons, he had no reason to believe that would ever happen.

*stares into the camera like…oh you know what I’m going to say*

Let’s go to the tape, folks.

“For a really long time that’s all I had. I just had little moments with a girl who saw me as friend. And a lot of people told me I was crazy to wait this long for a date with a girl who I worked with, but I think even then I knew that… I was waiting for my wife.” — S06E04, Niagra

He had no reason to believe that, but he still did. And that’s called delusion, a delusion that is paid off in this fictional universe.

Jim, on the other hand, would’ve probably still been Pam’s friend even if she’d married dumb Roy and had his dumb kids because he loved her unconditionally.

Fictional character. Also, hypothetical. Yknow, Unattainable I get. But Ideal? Because my ideal is someone who knows how to healthily handle a crush.

In a world where guys will go out with you once and never talk to you again, but then like all of your Instagram posts for the rest of your life like they never really wanted to date you and instead just wanted to capture you in glass and look at you forever like a caged fucking bird, Jim Halpert is a fucking revelation.

This is the last sentence in the excerpt. I can’t speak on heterosexual dating life, I am a 20 year old baby who’s been with one of my partners for 2.5 years. I don’t date around, especially not with cis men. But this seems…off. It seems like Jim Halpert’s main redeeming quality is that he is…marginally old fashioned? You wanna know why? Because Instagram liking and ghosting doesn’t make good tv!

To sum up, Jim Halpert:

• harbored a secret crush on Pam for years
• dated a woman (not just any woman, Amy Adams!) just to be a sort of Pam substitute
• broke up with her the minute Pam seemed skeptical of Roy
• didn’t go to her art show
• confessed his love for her knowing she would go home to her fiance
• moved to Stamford and ghosted Pam, then dated Karen, only for her to deal with flakiness and no commitment
• wasn’t even friends with Pam when he moved back to Scranton, prompting her to WALK OVER COALS to sum up enough courage to confront him about this
• Bought a ring a week into dating, which most people think is romantic, but I think is a one way ticket to That’s It, I’m Ring Shaming. We know he has terrible taste in jewelry because he buys her a heart pendant even Pam admits is ugly, so how did he know what ring to buy? Did he buy something similar to the ring Roy gave her? Yikes.
• Made Pam going to art school all about him and how much he missed her
• Bought a house without consulting her!!!!! And because it’s a tv show she loves it because he put a stool and an easel in the garage so she can paint!!! The implications of that!!!
• I’m not even going to mention the whole sports marketing job and investment and the whole Brian the sound guy palaver.

If Jim Halpert is actually secretly terrible even though he was written to be the best, then who, if anyone, is the actual Unattainable Ideal?

Behold: Benjamin Wyatt, whose main flaws are that he bankrupted a town when he was 18 and is a bit nerdy.

Ben Wyatt, who when presented with an amazing career opportunity in DC, hems and haws over it until he gets Leslie’s outright approval. Jim Halpert would have MAYBE texted Pam about it when the plane landed at Dulles. Maybe.

Ben Wyatt, who realized his crush wouldn’t work out because of his workplace’s rules so he called it off, only starting up again after an open and honest conversation with Leslie.

Ben Wyatt, who got Leslie in trouble at work and so sacrifices his government career for her, knowing how passionate she was about her job. Jim doesn’t even really support Pam’s pivot to sales.

Ben Wyatt is the actual Unattainable Ideal, but because he is very into communication and honesty and steadfastness, is written off as “boring.” Sure, Jim may have the better story, but I want boys today modeling themselves after Ben.