So, we can all agree that this past episode of Insecure was terrible, right?  Not because of the writing or the plot, but because it didn’t come with a trigger warning.  On the penultimate episode of the season, “Obsessed-Like,” Issa struggles to accept that her new love interest (or so we thought) has ghosted, or mosted her.  I just learned about mosting, and whew people are trash.  We all got together on Twitter and iMessage and commiserated over our shared traumas on ghosting ad nauseam, so that’s not what we’re going to talk about here today.  Well maybe a little.  Let me just make it firmly clear that if you are a proud ghoster, you are a terrorist, and I will find you and turn your ass in, you poor excuse for a human.  You are literally bad at being a human.  Stay in the house, and don’t contact anyone until you learn how to act.  For more of a discussion on the topic of ghosting/mosting/orbiting/being a trash person, check out my friend’s post here.

Photo: HBO

Now that that’s handled let’s get into our convo.  I couldn’t help but notice a secondary theme for Issa and Molly in terms of their dating lives in this episode, and that’s the idea of being broken.  So I posit the question, should unhealed, or “broken” people really be dating at all? Let’s look at the facts.

Try as she might, Molly cannot get right with her love life…or her new job for that matter.  From season one up until now, we’ve watched Molly make a series of shitty dating choices based on her idea of how things “should” be.  This all came to a head when she finally ended her relationship with Dro, and tried something new with Andrew.  On their second date, Molly jokes that Andrew is grimy for kissing his friend’s girlfriend, and he returns the jab saying she’s grimy for sleeping with her married friend.  This lead to Molly getting really defensive, and leaving the date prematurely.  It’s become apparent that Molly doesn’t do well with being confronted with her issues, even in her therapy sessions.  Remember how she didn’t even tell her doctor about her relationship with Dro?  In her follow up conversation with Andrew, he notes that he met one Molly at Coachella, and another on their date, and both of them are screwed up.  Initially I thought that was a harsh assessment, but I had to admit he was kind of right.  She spilled all of her tea to a stranger, albeit under the influence of drugs, acted like a petulant child on their second date, and then popped up at his house with her stalker friend to accept an apology he never offered.  Andrew’s kind of got a point.

Photo: HBO

Issa completely lost her shit this episode, and went down a stalker spiral that was honestly difficult to watch.  Upon not hearing from Nanceford (I will not call him by his name) for a full week, she became more and more obsessed with the why, and the what.  We’ve all been in this space after being ghosted.  You question every move you made up until that point, wondering what you did to push the person away.  Were you too vulnerable?  Were you too much yourself?  This line of questioning leads Issa to go fully off the rails and come up with a ruse to get into Nanceford’s house and go through his things.  Once back in the car with Molly, Issa reveals that the reason this is hitting her so hard is because he made her feel like she was more than just a fuck up, and she’s afraid no one will ever make her feel that way again.  That’s the crux of why ghosting is so shitty.  You have these amazing moments with this person who makes you feel great about yourself, and when they leave without notice, they take that feeling with them.  The problem with that is, shouldn’t we feel great about ourselves already?  Is it even healthy to become reliant on someone to make us feel good?  The external validation you get from being with someone you like will only last for so long if you have not internally validated yourself first.

When I thought about everything going on in their lives external to dating, Molly and Issa’s mental health can’t be on solid ground.  Issa quit her job at We Got Y’all to work on a music festival that she has no idea how to execute.  Her new job at her apartment is exactly what we thought it would be, and she just figured out how to be a good Lyft driver.  Not to mention that she was so distraught over not hearing from this man that she became a thirst monster stalker.  Molly can’t seem to stop self-sabotaging every work relationship she has, and only went on the date with Andrew in response to Dro and his wife expecting a baby.  Should these people really be dating at all?

If you have any level of self-awareness, then you are an ever evolving person, and you’ll never be perfect.  But, when is the best time on your mental health journey to risk bringing unresolved trauma into someone else’s life?  Ideally you’d meet a person who can meet you right where you are, and be supportive and take up space for you as you are healing, and vice versa.  That’s ideal, but when?  Broken people shouldn’t be relegated to live out their days alone like the stone men in Old Valyria (had to throw in a GOT reference), but is it fair to unpack all of your baggage on the floor of someone else’s life?  The question isn’t how do you know when it’s real, it’s how do you know when you’re ready?

Photo: HBO