T.V. women and time travel

It was when Neal was sitting in his cramped, one room apartment watching the “Mary Tyler Moore” show that the idea hit him. ‘If I was at my age now, back then, I’d clean up. I’d get all the women.’ It was an idea that absorbed him for the duration of the show until he realized that there really wasn’t a reason that he would be so successful with women back then as opposed to his current failures. He tried to analyze what about the show would bring him to that conclusion, but couldn’t put a finger on it. If he was at his current age, back in the 70’s he would be no different than any other guy who spends all his time arguing with people on his favorite website about what constituted as being ‘off topic’, and who should get banned in a flame-war. Except that there wouldn’t be any Internet- just dial up B.B.S.’s- if even that. No, he wouldn’t ‘clean up’ as he was right now.



He decided to break the thought process down, to better understand why he came to the conclusion that he could ‘bag’ Rhoda. First, it was their innocent, and fun-loving nature. But he quickly realized that no one was really like that. It was just television, and no one in the 70’s was prepared for the kind of realistic television we have now. So the show did a disservice portraying women in the 70’s as being more accessible. Second, he wouldn’t be popular back then with his personality as it is now. The only reason why he thought he would have an upper-hand was if they knew he was from the future. And, since they don’t know what people are like in the future, they would be more accepting of his social deficiencies. They wouldn’t know any better. His tight, Star Wars shirt would seem mysterious and intriguing to them, and his obsession with Buffy figurines all the more attractive. He would give them samples of his knowledge of future events, but never give them the full story with the explanation being that it would “upset the fabric of space-time”. But since that was an impossibility, he realized that he would just be another single guy sitting in an equally cramped, one bedroom apartment watching the same shows he his now, but they wouldn’t be reruns.

He should of felt depressed at that point, and start calling women he knew from high school- Instead, he was comforted by the image of a coifed Mary Tyler Moore, smiling at him with sparkling white teeth while swooning, “Oooooh Neal. I think it’s just fascinating when you talk about World of Warcraft. I can’t wait until the Internet is invented so I can play it…”