Ben and I are devoted fans of the American sitcom, Big Bang Theory. There are two female characters in the show – Penny and Amy – and I have been wondering who I’m most like. Penny is the fun, cool, beautiful, man-magnet, actress-wannabe who works in a cafe. Amy is the nerdy, insecure, intelligent, neurobiologist who never had any friends or boyfriends (that is until her character made friends with the other characters in the show). Writing the traits of both women now has hammered it in to me that I’m much more like Amy. But this wasn’t obvious to me before because we don’t always view ourselves as other people do and I spend much of the time mocking and laughing at Amy. Who would want to resemble her? The gorgeous fun-loving Penny that everyone adores. That was me, right? No. The penny dropped (good pun!) when I saw that Amy had a crocheted granny blanket on the couch in her apartment in the exact same spot as mine.
I never had any boyfriends in high school. Not one. My parents must have found this odd because I can remember them asking me one day whether I liked boys. This was somewhat humiliating because the implication was that I liked girls and while there’s nothing wrong with girls liking girls, I was not one of those girls. I felt inadequate and insecure, just like Amy. She also lacks the tact and social convention insights that Penny grasps so well. Here again, a similarity I share with Amy.
One should be proud to have traits in common with Amy Farrah Fowler. She is very intelligent and does have a Ph.D in neurobiology. Amazingly, this is mirrored in real life with the actor who plays her, Mayim Bialik, also possessing a Ph.D in neurobiology. That I don’t have.
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