The Great Thirst Trap
Stuff dating columnist, millennial singleton Sinead Corcoran looks to The Great Romance Classics for inspiration for her love life.
Okay, so I know The Great Gatsby is supposed to be about the disintegration of the American dream in an era of unprecedented prosperity and material excess, but I think you’ll find what it’s actually about is Thirst Trapping.
It’s 1922. Jay Gatsby is a millionaire who every Saturday night throws an opulent and wild house party at his mansion, purely to garner the attention of his crush – natural, bare-faced beauty Daisy Buchanan who is someone we all spend 45 minutes (and about as many products) to try to look like.
Unfortunately for Gatsby, he was 88 years too early to have Instagram, the platform predominantly used for Thirst Trapping – so he had to resort to this very overdramatic, real-life version.
In case you haven’t heard of the term, thirst trapping is the social media trend where participants post attractive or provocative photos to hopefully garner the attention of a specific follower. They are often executed in the weeks following a break up, when you want to look like you’re out and about having the time of your life, so that your ex knows you’re Not That Phased About The Breakup Anyway.
They are also implemented when you have a crush on someone but you’re resisting contacting them for fear of looking Too Keen.
Instead, you attempt to woo them through your fun and charismatic, carefree and aloof internet persona so that they have no choice but to imagine what a great addition to their life you would be.
This describes Gatsby’s antics in a millennial nutshell. He barely even makes an appearance at his own parties, they are held purely as traps.
The problematic flip side of these traps, however, is that Gatsby’s are a classic example of fragile masculinity.
Instead of just Being Vulnerable and rowing his boat across the lake to Daisy’s house and telling her that he likes her just the way she is, like Mr Darcy in Bridget Jones, or saying ‘‘you complete me’’ Jerry Maguire style, he hides in his mansion like a man-child and makes these half-hearted attempts to woo her through frivolous soirees.
Raised on 90s romcoms, my absolute weakness is a Grand Gesture, and Gatsby should have just gone and got his gal – preferably by climbing up her fire escape in an ill-fitting grey suit and clutching roses, like Richard Gere in Pretty Woman.
Also, with the amount of coin he sunk into those shindigs he could have got one of those flower subscriptions rich people have that send roses to your house every week, which would have been far more tasteful.
I also strongly believe that Gatsby didn’t actually love Daisy, he was just in love with the idea of her, like a Manic Pixie Dream Girl. A term coined by film critic Nathan Rabin after seeing Elizabethtown, Rabin defines a Manic Pixie Dream Girl as a character who ‘‘exists solely in the fevered imaginations of sensitive writer-directors to teach broodingly soulful young men to embrace life and its infinite mysteries and adventures’’.
Instead of working on himself, Gatsby fixates on Daisy in the hopes she can solve his problems.
This never works and is a sure fire way to tank a relationship and end up somewhere like Tony Veitch’s wellness retreat, trying to figure out where you went wrong in life.