Nick, Norah and Dave's Infinite Playlist

I love Nick and Norah. Do you know who else I love? Tom and Summer. Juno and Bleeker. I love Burt and Verona. I even love Jim and Pam. Why? Because they are all me and us and everybody we know. Everybody everywhere sees themselves as the slightly off-centre person that no-one quite gets but is really the best person in the world, and we all deserve to have our happiness.

There are some differences in the way the five above relationships evolve.

Nick and Norah: they fall in love in one night and miss catching their own white whale just to be with each other.

Tom and Summer: absolutely right for each other, but destined to be apart.

Juno and Bleeker: two friends who are forced to realise how much they love each other by a mistake.

Burt and Verona: a perfect couple in an imperfect world.

Jim and Pam: absolutely right for each other, but manage to miss each other several times before it works.

Of course, it could be because I love Michael Cera, John Krasinski, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Kat Dennings, Zooey Deschanel, Ellen Page, Maya Rudolph, and (most of all) Jenna Fischer that I want to be these people, but I think there is more to it. I think there is something in misery that attracts me to these people.

The most effective couples here, for me, are Tom and Summer, and Jim and Pam. Not pregnant Jim and Pam, engaged Jim and Pam, or happy Jim and Pam. Jim and Pam when it's Jim (and Karen) and Pam, or Jim and Pam (and Roy). I love misery.

I loved wallowing in the misery of watching Tom waste his time with Summer, and thinking "Yep, that's right" when he eventually lost her. I loved the misery of Jim having to watch Pam and Roy set a date for their wedding. I've come to realise that (as Motorhead so succinctly put it) the chase is better than the catch.

Of course, when Nick and Norah finally got the chance to watch Where's Fluffy? they left to spend time with each other. They didn't need to see this band, they just needed to see that they could see this band if they wanted to.

Why should Nick and Norah watch this band now? At least a small part of the attraction was the mysticism that went along with them. When (presumably) a few normal guys walks out on the stage...where's the fun in that? When Dorothy finally meets the wizard and he's one small man surrounded by smoke and mirrors, where's the magic in that? When Willard finally meets Kurtz and he's one fat guy surrounded by a horde of drug-addled children, where's the awe in that? When Tom finally gets to be with Summer and she doesn't want to be with him forever, and doesn't want to grow old with him, and doesn't want everything he wants, where's the true love in that?

For me, I can take this in one of two ways. Number one:

When man finally figures out who Jesus/God/Allah/whoever is/was and he's just one guy with a beard who did some good in the world, we will destroy our idols. The chase is much better than the catch. It doesn't matter if there is a god or not. Some guy does believe it, I don't. We both enjoy our sides of the argument, until the day one of us is right or wrong, and then nobody cares anymore.

Version two goes like this:

Who needs to have everything they want? There comes a point when you get a better TV and it's just a slightly sharper image. You get to be with the person of your dreams and they aren't the same person as was in your dreams. They share the same body, but this person doesn't care about whether you want to go out or stay in. It doesn't matter to them. Again, the chase is better than the catch. For all the promise something might hold in mind, it will never fulfil it.

There is no point to dreaming. I suppose there is no real harm in dreaming either, but one has to be realistic. As for the misery I mentioned earlier, I just enjoy misery. I am a miserable person. It works for me. I have friends who manage to counterbalance the way I am and that works for me too.

That's why I love all those people. They, for me, are the chase. Their chase is my chase. I don't know what the catch will be for me. Maybe one day it will happen and it will be just as good as the chase. Maybe one day something will happen to me and I will catch the bug of optimism. Or religion. Or love. But I hope not, because I like the chase. I like to be miserable, to wallow, and to wait. And that is why I love Nick and Norah. They know the chase is better than the catch.