The Root of My Damsel-In-Distress Complex

I try to compose myself, frustrated by my shaky hands and choked-up voice. It is 2 a.m. and the FaceTime call I initiated feels like some sort of personal failure. Matt’s there, on the other side of the screen, like he always is. Yet again, I’m crying to him about a stupid boy, the same stupid boy; a party trick that I’ve mastered but wish I hadn’t. There have been other Matts and other stupid boys, but the outcome is always the same: me, sobbing my eyes out and laying out all of my problems on some guy, whilst never daring to show the same amount of vulnerability with girls. I believe in asking for help, but the fact is, I am 20 years old and I still associate male comfort with validation. This recent realization has filled me with guilt because I know that I don’t go to the women in my life for the same kind of support that I depend on from men. Time and time again, I have chosen to seek out my male friends when I am vulnerable or upset.

 “What do you mean?” asks Matt. 

 I can tell he doesn’t get it. What he doesn’t know is that tonight, my finger hovered over Mariel’s name before landing on his. The question echoed through my head; “In this moment, should I look to my female friendships for comfort, or should I do what I always do?” As the FaceTime dial tone rang through my empty bedroom, I felt the guilt begin to set in.

 Matt is a good friend. He listens to me cry about boys and tells me it wasn’t my fault. He knows when to listen and when to offer up his own advice. But in the back of my mind, I know that there is a problem with the way I regard my friendships with women. I feel ashamed to admit that none of my girl friends have seen me cry, but nearly all of my close guy friends have. Deep down, I know that this is because, in moments of crisis, I have always insisted on being vulnerable with my male friends. Why? Why do I refuse to let my guard down in front of women, yet flock to men the moment I tear up? Why is there something more appealing about sobbing to a boy at 3 a.m. when I need comfort? It occurred to me that the source of this imbalance, or what I fondly refer to as my ‘damsel-in-distress complex’, is external.

Pacey and Joey in Dawson’s Creek

For as long as I can remember, I have been consuming media with the all-too-popular ‘guy saves girl’ plotline. Not only have I been taught that men exist to rescue me when I’m in distress, but often, this trope leads to love stories where the guy falls for the girl. My tendency to rely on men for comfort comes from a place of wanting to be desirable. I mean, isn’t that what everyone wants, to be wanted? I’ve spent years watching men comfort women on TV, observing how their platonic feelings develop into romantic ones after coming to the girl’s rescue. There’s always that moment when she gets sloppy-drunk at the party and he has to take her home, and as he’s tucking her into bed, (after respectfully taking off her heels, of course), something shifts. You can almost always see it in his eyes, in the way he looks at her. He brushes a strand of hair away from her face, and suddenly, things are different. As she lies there, unguarded and unaware, he is able to see her as a romantic possibility. And maybe there’s something beautiful about that, about someone’s capacity for love expanding under the influence of true, unselfish care for another person’s wellbeing. But it’s not real, is it? It’s a beautifully constructed way to fall in love, but that’s just it; it’s constructed, fabricated.

 Many of my favorite ‘guy saves girl’ love stories were born from this trope, and in turn, so was my ‘damsel-in-distress’ complex. In Dawson’s Creek, Pacey comes to Joey’s rescue numerous times; from the classic ‘sloppy-drunk at the party’, to picking her up from the train station after she breaks up with her boyfriend. Somewhere along the way, he falls in love with her. In Gilmore Girls, Luke is seen coming to Lorelai’s aid countless times, through family emergencies, failed relationships, and being her go-to shoulder to cry on over the years. Amongst the chaos, he falls in love with her. 

 This trope can be found in TV shows with more absurd plotlines too. In The Fosters, Brandon falls for Callie after helping her get her little brother out of an abusive foster home. Similarly, in The X-Files, Mulder’s feelings for Scully become apparent when Scully becomes the target of the murder cases they are investigating and Mulder has to save her from the killer. My last and most intense example is One Tree Hill, where Lucas falls in love with Peyton after helping her through a myriad of traumatic events, such as identifying her dad’s possible dead body, getting shot in the leg during a school shooting, and being held captive by her violent stalker.

Lucas and Peyton in One Tree Hill

As ridiculous as it may sound, I think Lucas and Peyton’s love story resonated with me the most because it affirmed that someone could help me through my deepest traumas, and still find something to love about me. I found this idea comforting because it hushed my fear of being too damaged or hurt to be loved by another person, reassuring me that my trauma could be the most desirable thing about me. It taught me that men want to save me. If there was something wrong with me, there would be something for them to fix. It’s sad, but I’ve spent a lot of time being motivated by the wrong things; ultimately the yearning to be wanted, and the avoidance of truly healing from my own trauma. A lot of what I was struggling with could’ve been solved if I had just looked within myself and worked through my own shortcomings and false notions. I was leaning on my friends selectively and for the wrong reasons, which is why the ‘guy saves girl’ trope lives on as just that; an overused plot line in TV shows. 

 It’s been a few months since I came to this realization. My finger doesn’t hover over Mariel’s name like it used to anymore. I know I can call her when I’ve had a shitty day and my heart is feeling heavy in my chest, and because I’ve shown that trust in her, she knows she can do the same. It’s liberating, and I wish I had learned this lesson sooner. The beautiful thing about learning how to uplift the friendships you’ve been neglecting is that it elevates all of your relationships. I still call Matt when I’m upset. I still cry to him the way I used to. But, I don’t rely on him in an unhealthy way anymore, and that allowed our friendship to grow, far past what we used to be capable of.

I’m still learning to break out of the narratives that were fed to me by the media. At the end of the day, I recognize that I am a person who needs help sometimes, and that I am surrounded by people who also need my help. I am not a damsel in distress and no one is here to save me, and I am not here to save anyone else. Maybe that sounds cynical, but in a weird way, I find it comforting.