“I like things that look like mistakes.”

I tweeted the other day that Frances Ha may be insufferable, but it’s my kind of insufferable. It probably helps that I not only identify with Frances’ need to grow as a person and get to know herself better, but that I also think Greta Gerwig looks something like me. And that, like being loved by me, being loved by Frances isn’t always easy.

image

In the essay that accompanies the Criterion edition of the film, playwright Annie Baker writes,

Frances Ha is a romance. You could even call it a romantic comedy. It’s not a boy-girl romance or a girl-girl romance but a romance between the title character and her capital-S Self: at the end of the film, after a series of obstacles, Frances finally gets to know, and fall in love with, Frances.

I saw the film in the theater, alone, on May 25th. I only know the date because on the following day, I wrote this reflection on Daft Punk’s Random Access Memories, in which I talk about having seen the film the day before. At the time, I said this about it:

Yesterday I saw Frances Ha. Though she isn’t the most graceful person in the world, Greta Gerwig’s Frances is a dancer. After one open-hearted and awkward and lovely dance routine she choreographed, she says something like “I like things that look like mistakes.” Her life is full of them. So is mine.

The difference is that she embraces them, seemingly almost fearless. I try to avoid them as much as I can, mortified at the thought of the true extent of my goofiness, my awkwardness, my social ineptitude being made apparent.

I’ve done some things that feel like mistakes since then. But that’s okay. I don’t have time or energy to waste on being guarded anymore. 

Of course, my particular experiences as a trans person mean that I’ve had a lot less time to get to really know myself than most women my age. I joked with a friend recently that I should wear a big sign with a disclaimer around my neck when entering new social or romantic situations, something like: I APOLOGIZE IN ADVANCE. I HAVE NO IDEA WHAT THE FUCK I’M DOING. YOUR PATIENCE IS APPRECIATED.

There is one key difference between Frances and me. As Baker writes in her essay about the film, 

Who knows if Frances and Benji will ever get together? It’s actually irrelevant in the romance that is this movie. Frances’s ability to live alone, and inch toward artistic and spiritual fulfillment, is the happy ending we get, and it’s totally satisfying.

Though I have a lot less life experience in some key areas than Frances does, I’m also a fair bit older than she is (as much as I still feel like an awkward teen) and at this point, having spent more than enough time alone, my personal growth means learning to interact with and rely on people more, not less. Earlier tonight, a colleague asked me if I’d be at the office working all weekend, which isn’t unusual, and these are busy times. 

“I’ll be working a lot,” I said, “but I’m also trying to do more of that whole ‘human interaction’ thing lately. It’s rough. I’ve got a lot to learn. But I think maybe I’m starting to understand how you people talk to each other, and that’s good.”

image

There are still plenty of mistakes left to be made.