Nice Guys Finish Married
Don’t overlook the nerdy guy who’s always there for you. Marry him.
I’m a huge fan of The Goldbergs, and not just because I am one. Or not only because their marketing campaign included sending personalized postcards to the extended Goldberg “family” across America when the show first aired. Not only because the show manages to look at otherwise serious subjects like family drama and nostalgia in a comical and lighthearted, yet meaningful way. Not only because there are real value lessons in every episode that I’ll be sharing with my own kids when they’re old enough to watch the show. And not only because the show is technically and stylistically brilliant.
No, the real reason I’m a big fan of The Goldbergs is that it is a show in which the good guy — who might be nerdy, a pseudo-jock, a Deadhead, a 40-something Dad who sells furniture — always wins.
When The Goldbergs first came on the air my husband and I got a huge kick out of the fact that the lead character is Adam Goldberg who wants to make movies. My husband is also an Adam Goldberg (not the Adam Goldberg — they’re separated by one middle initial and a few years) who spent his childhood studying video technology and now also works in television, albeit the engineering end of the business. Like ABC’s Adam, my Adam grew up in an era when it was truly uncool to wear thick prescription glasses, love video games, and be the nerdy Jewish kid in class.
But there’s one other character that has grown to remind me of my husband when I first met him in college: Geoff Schwartz, a member of Adam’s older brother Barry’s best friend crew, the Jenkintown Posse (JTP!). Last season saw Geoff and the oldest member of TV’s Goldberg clan Erica finally admit they were in love with each other. Watching them get together was the perfect mix of John Hughes romance, Wonder Years longing, and ‘80s sitcom humor. But, The Goldbergs trademark came from something unique to the show: It’s ability to have the nerdy do-gooder get the girl who is seemingly completely out of his league.
When my now-husband and I were first introduced at a college party by a mutual friend, he was the nerdiest guy at the party. He was a year younger than me chronologically and two years behind me academically. Unlike other guys, he drank little and talked a lot. We wound up talking about the fact that he was born in Israel, and before the night was over he’d managed to spin some radical tale about his father, the Mossad, and secret telegrams from the Israeli army. Thinking back on it the entire episode would make for a great show of its own. It was the perfect mix of charming and downright absurd.
That night he walked me back to my dorm and didn’t make a move. A few nights later when he came over to my private room to hang out we talked …for six hours straight. Again, he didn’t make a move. When he invited me to come watch a movie in his dorm later the next week he dared to put his arm around me as we sat together on his bed. His behavior flew in the face of campus rape culture mythology. He was one of the good guys.
The most recent episode of The Goldbergs saw Geoff bringing Erica home from college for Thanksgiving weekend. Still a senior in high school, Geoff follows Erica into her house. He’s seen carrying her bags; presumably he’s the one who drove from Philly to D.C. to pick her up. He doesn’t just carry her two duffels upstairs, he unpacks them while she sits on her bed browsing a magazine. When she says she has something serious they need to talk about, Geoff breaks down in a panic, thinking she’s going to break up with him because she’s in college and he’s still in high school.
When my Adam decided to ask me to be his girlfriend (because that’s how we used to do it, Millennials: You’d date a guy for a while in the pursuit of a clear definition of monogamous relationship status that implied the potential for serious, lifelong commitment), I got cold feet. You see, right as we’d started “dating” (as much as two college kids with no money could “date”) I’d made the decision to apply to graduate school. I’d be graduating in a few months and moving halfway across the country. No relationship survives that kind of move, I thought. Why start? Why do that to a nice guy like Adam?
Without giving away the plot of the episode, Geoff comes to Erica’s aid all the while fearing that she’s inevitably going to dump him. In the end she doesn’t just say she’ll never dump him. She doesn’t even leave it at “I love you.” Erica goes so far as to envision spending the rest of her life with Geoff, regardless of their different career paths and what may happen during the volatile college years. Why? Because he constantly goes the extra mile to show off his good guy status.
My Adam understood my concerns and backed off. We didn’t see each other so much after that. At a meeting we both attended later that semester he spent a lot of time just looking at me with a mixture of confusion and regret. I felt guilty and pushed him away. And life moved on for seven years.
One day I was listening to my coworker complain about men. “There are no good guys,” she’d often say. Every time she did I thought of this guy I knew in college named Adam until something finally clicked and I couldn’t get him out of my head.
Good. Guys. Win.
They’re out there. Sure, they might be a little nerdy. They’re probably also really kind. And yes, sometimes they might truly be scared to death that you’re going to dump them. But, they’ve also got brains enough to support themselves financially and a desire to prioritize the ones they love. Most importantly, they’re good guys.
The good guy in your life might be your brother’s best friend, or the neighbor down the block you’ve rode the bus with your entire life. He might be the guy you exchange jokes with at the water cooler every day. He could even be the guy that lives three floors below your rat-trap starter apartment who manages to get your door unlocked when you’ve forgotten your key and the building manager is gone for the weekend. You know you can ask for his help, or share that joke, or just count on him being there because without your even realizing it, he’s made himself a comfortable part of your life. Maybe the most comfortable part. Because that’s what good guys do. They don’t necessarily hit on you because they’re too busy just being there for you.
So thank you, Goldbergs, for reminding us in the age of Harvey Weinstein that good guys are real and not just figments of our imagination or part of times gone by. Instead of freaking out over how to warn your daughters about the creeps, just sit them down in front of The Goldbergs and tell them how to look for the good guys. And if your boy is looking for a role model, point him in Adam Goldberg’s direction.
