why a show about a teenager's romantic life clicked so much

 Do you guys watch Never Have I Ever? You must. 

It's about a teenager named Devi Vishwakumar's high school experience in Greater Los Angeles. Not just any experience but one from an adorable, funny, nerdy, intelligent, grieving, healing, and horny young woman from a culturally strict family unit. I mean... replace strict Indian parent with Mexican parent and it's... familiar. But having someone up there getting the hot boy and the cute nerdy boy on top of just dealing with friendship and death and therapy and life gave us a girl that is so much more multi-faceted than a lot of television has given us in the past. We'd either get the nerd or the popular one. We had to remove our glasses and get made over to fit in. BOO. We're so much more than that. We should be loved as we are.

This season Devi seemed to get a lot of what she wanted in the boy department but just as in life, when you get that relationship you thought would complete you guess what... it doesn't magically solve all your problems. You still gotta deal with you. And if you wanna see what it's like to be loved, you gotta love yourself. All of your mess and all of your wins and all of your beautiful luminous being. 

I know, I'd hate listening to me too if I hadn't also learned this lesson first hand. Not just about the boy, I got the boy, I love the boy. But about the job. The house. The kid. The other kid. None of all those checklists make a lick of difference if inside of you keeps resisting the truth. That the relationship you really need to come to terms with is how you think and love yourself. How you listen to your voice within and learn what you need and what you want. It's a hot topic this 'self-love' thing and I'm not going to debase love by stooping it to the level that the world thinks is self-love. It's not narcissism, it's not self-care and treat yo-self. It's so much more than that. Love is so much more than that. 

I think of it as well, perfect love casts out all fear and I think of it as being unafraid of what you are when you're stripped of everything. It's wonderful and all well and good to have all those wonderful things. But when you're alone in a cave with nobody and nothing but your thoughts who are you? When you're left to your own vices amongst strangers, who do you default to, and would you want to spend time with that person? Is your life one of character, faith, growth? Have you confronted the bears in the cave, have you looked at the scars, have you asked the hard questions of yourself?

Also, love is not greedy. It is the opposite of greedy. So if you're wondering what a life of genuine self-love and not narcissism looks like, it is evident in the people we pour into. It's evidenced in the generosity we live life in. It's loving others well. Or at least it looks like someone that is TRYING to love others even if she sucks at it sometimes.