#devi vishawakumar

Okay, okay! I’m doing it!

As we all know Paxton hasn’t had a actual girlfriend. He has had “hookups” but not girlfriends. He has never really liked someone romantically before. As we learn from his episode he has had a lot of girls who “like him” because he is hot. No girl has ever truly liked him for him.

In comes Devi. She is smart and beautiful, funny, and appears very confident. When she first approaches Paxton with her, “do you want to have sex with me” proposal he assumes that she is just like every other girl. That she is using him for his body. However, he quickly learns that there is so much more to her than that. She is genuinely kind, funny, smart, and crazy in a good way. He becomes her friend first before he ever kisses her. This is very new to him. When she cheats on him, he is genuinely hurt. This was his actual first real relationship. He does forgive her, mostly. Then comes the tutoring and becoming friends again. After the extra credit project he realizes that Devi makes him better.

Okay, so here is where the idealization comes from. Paxton views Devi as someone who is very smart and extremely confident, all the things he feels he isn’t. Paxton is deeply insecure about not only his intelligence but his image. He wants people to view him as someone who is not only cool but a as someone with the potential to do great things. Paxton has been put in the “Hot dumb jock” box his whole life and is desperate to get out. When he sees Devi, he sees only the good things she brings to him. He sees that she makes him better, that she believes in him. And that’s all Paxton wants, is someone to truly believe in him.

Now, I don’t think Paxton’s idealization of Devi is necessarily bad, I mean it’s good to want to be with some who helps you become a better person. The problem with Devi and Paxton comes from the fact that both of them only see each other on the surface. They are both (from their perspective) a manifestation of the things they want to be. Paxton: hot, popular, seemingly without any deep problems (“hot people don’t have problems”-Devi) . Devi: smart, driven, a parent who believes in her potential, confident.

They don’t really see each other’s problems. They both want to be loved, to have a real relationship that they don’t really care who it’s with. Devi thinks that a relationship with Paxton will be perfect and fix all her problems, Paxton thinks “Wow, someone who sees me as I am, and she will help me live up to my true potential”. Which wouldn’t be bad, if it was true. Because we all know that Devi doesn’t really see Paxton for who he truly is plus that girl has her own issues she needs to work on/through.