Here’s To You, Mr. Robinson

On the 50th anniversary of The Graduate, let’s not forget the tragic horror story of the film’s biggest loser

Take a moment to think about your best friend. Someone you grew up with and went to college with and pulled all-nighters with and know that you’ll know for the rest of your life. The first person you call or text as soon as you get home from a date and your heart is still pounding out of your chest.

Now imagine one night, this friend of yours has a particularly exciting first date that ends with the two of them laying naked in the back seat of a parked car in one of those romantic, remote locations overlooking a city that really only exists in the movies.

If they called you the next morning and bragged about how they had sex and amazing chemistry and definitely plan to see each other again, you’d be happy for them and maybe even a little jealous, but also not 100% sure if you believe them and pretty confident they only made out. You’d let them have their moment because you’re a good friend.

But what if it didn’t end that night, and the first date led to a second date, and 9 months later your friend had a newborn daughter named Elaine and was engaged with a wedding around the corner.

Pretty exciting, right! Maybe even a little scary. Guess what? Before you know it, you’re married with a newborn too! Life comes at you fast. He’s cute and from the looks of it will be an excellent runner. You name him Ben.

You and your friend go to law school together and bust your ass together and go into business together and raise your kids together and build a pretty good suburban upper class life for your families in California over the next 20 years.

Ben and Elaine are all grown up and about to graduate from college. He goes to Williams, she goes to Berkley. Time flies, am I right? Ben is back home for the summer, trying to figure out what to do with the rest of his life, and tomorrow you’re throwing him a graduation party.

You’re so proud of him, but, um, things are about to get really awkward.

24 hours from now, your son is going pull an Irish Exit at his own graduation party to drive home your best friend’s wife, Mrs. Robinson, setting in motion a series of events that will ruin Mr. Robinson’s life and absolutely destroy everything he holds near and dear to his heart over the next 365 days.

Here’s how it happens, Mr. Robinson

The night of the party, you find Ben casually sitting in your living room around midnight and have a heart to heart with him over a drink. You tell him to “sow a few wild oats” and be a ladies man. Oh look, it’s your wife coming downstairs for a nightcap. You wax poetic about being his age like someone full of remorse over how they spent their twenties. You want him to be happy as if he were your son.

But would you ever expect that the cute little kid who came over to your house for play dates would grow up to fuck your wife and daughter?

Minutes before you come home that night, Ben is seduced by your wife for the first time. They have sex on a regular basis for the next few months. Somewhere between the second and last time they do it, he goes on a date with your daughter. He falls in love with her and sleeps with her too. Eventually, you figure all of this out, because you didn’t become a successful lawyer by NOT figuring these things out.

So now your marriage is ruined and you are about to lose 50% of everything you own in a divorce, but there is a silver lining to this whole mess. Your daughter is absolutely repulsed by Ben when she finds out about his fling with her mother, as she should be. She moves on and meets a handsome frat boy at school that takes her on cute dates to the zoo. He proposes to Elaine (without the pretense of her being pregnant) and they’re going to get married!

He seems nice. He hasn’t slept with your wife. You pay for the wedding. It’s going to be one of the happiest day of your life. Your only child getting married, and God knows you are overdue for a happy day.

The day of the wedding, right as the ceremony is about to get to the good part, Ben shows up at the church. He is so determined to fuck up your daughter’s wedding that he runs over a mile to get there after his car runs out of gas. The same car he used to take your wife and daughter on dates. Maybe even the same car he’ll conceive your granddaughter in one day.

Can you believe this kid? He yells and screams and tries his best to ruin things, and unfortunately for your wallet and blood pressure, he succeeds. You try to stop him, but Ben is young and strong and in great shape. He hits you in the gut, throws you against the wall, and runs off with your daughter. He laughs at you as they ride off into the distance on a bus. You are ruined.

I wanted to tell you that I’m sorry, Mr. Robinson

I’m sorry that your wife never really loved you and never will and that if you didn’t get her pregnant on your first date you’d never have wound up together.

I’m sorry you probably felt pressured to marry her because she was pregnant and you wanted to do the right thing.

I’m sorry that your daughter makes crazy, irrational decisions and was the original Runaway Bride.

I’m sorry that Ben Braddock treated you like a chump, embarrassed you in front of everyone you know, and has slept with your wife more in the past month than you have in the past five years.

I’m sorry that you developed an addiction to sleeping pills and take 3 of them at 10 pm like clockwork to cope with your life and the fact that nobody appreciates any of the things you do or sacrifices you make.

I’m sorry that “hide your kids, hide your wife” applies to you so well.

I’m sorry that you’ll never have a normal Thanksgiving with your family ever again and that you eat most of your meals alone now.

I’m sorry that you will no longer have a son-in-law that you can enjoy drinks, cigars, and rounds of golf with.

I’m sorry that Simon and Garfunkel didn’t write a song about you.

I’m sorry that Mr. Braddock raised his son to be a disrespectful, selfish degenerate who has zero respect for you or the sanctity of marriage. With friends like these, who needs enemies?

I’m sorry that you did everything you could in life to provide for your wife and your daughter over the years and they repaid you by sleeping with your best friend’s kid. You deserve better, and it’s just a shame things unfolded the way they did.

I’m sorry that it’s been 50 years since all of this happened to you and millions of people have watched your life fall apart and really enjoyed it and didn’t think twice about the pain you went through and now you are probably dead and can’t even read this tribute to your undeserved misery.

Here’s to you, Mr. Robinson.

If you feel bad for Mr. Robinson and want to help spread awareness for the unfortunate series of events that changed his life forever and resulted in him dying sad and alone, click the heart icon on this page. The man needs a little love.