Excellent! You know, I wonder sometimes if the difficulty people have connecting with Buffy in the later seasons is the way she starts off being fairly extroverted and ends up an introvert. Introverted characters are sometimes acceptable, but only with the understanding that they get more extroverted as time goes on, because that's how people should behave. This is Willow's arc to a degree (blah blah, oh look he's talking about Willow again STOP IT)--she feels great pressure to be hip and cool and actually does so, but in the process she loses basically all her introspection, and the more balanced Willow in season seven spends most of her time alone or with her partner. (Introspection FTW!)
Whatever. I always feel there's something wrong with me whenever I don't go to mixers or whatever you're supposed to do. But it's very hard connecting from inside to outside, you know? Especially with people I know I'm not going to get a chance to communicate with deeply, because I'm not really sure where to begin. I feel a little like Giles in Welcome to the Hellmouth, at the Bronze: "Oh, right, this is me having fun. Watching... clown hair prance about is hardly my idea of a party. I'd much rather be at home with a cup of Bovril and a good book." Ha! Season 1!Buffy naturally assumes this is because he's not interesting ("You need a personality, STAT") but we know from later on it's not that Giles is a prude or doesn't know how to have fun. It's just a much more personal, one-on-one kind (see, for ex., his dates with Olivia). In "A Beautiful Sunset" in season eight, Buffy looks wistfully at a party in the castle where the slayers dance, but she doesn't join in, and I don't think it's just because she is afraid to or separated from them as their leader; I think she just doesn't feel the same pull to party in a large group, and doesn't quite understand it.
Incidentally, I've oddly never had trouble identifying with Riley in season five. Like, not in a "hey, he sure knows how to deal with this maturely and isn't a jerk!" kind of way. But I never have any trouble knowing where he's coming from. I was once having a relationship fall apart while my girlfriend's grandfather was dying, and it was very hard to deal with the fact that I wanted to be there for her, but couldn't do anything, and that I really wanted to leave. There was another relationship where I was dating someone who had great emotional pain and huge responsibilities, and it was tough knowing how little I could do. It's still the same now: I haven't experienced much loss personally, so I identify much more with the Scooby act in "The Body" than the Buffy or Dawn ones. Of course, I managed to deal with the initial relationship without going to vamp hookers, so, score one for me. And I hurt for Buffy so much.
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Whatever. I always feel there's something wrong with me whenever I don't go to mixers or whatever you're supposed to do. But it's very hard connecting from inside to outside, you know? Especially with people I know I'm not going to get a chance to communicate with deeply, because I'm not really sure where to begin. I feel a little like Giles in Welcome to the Hellmouth, at the Bronze: "Oh, right, this is me having fun. Watching... clown hair prance about is hardly my idea of a party. I'd much rather be at home with a cup of Bovril and a good book." Ha! Season 1!Buffy naturally assumes this is because he's not interesting ("You need a personality, STAT") but we know from later on it's not that Giles is a prude or doesn't know how to have fun. It's just a much more personal, one-on-one kind (see, for ex., his dates with Olivia). In "A Beautiful Sunset" in season eight, Buffy looks wistfully at a party in the castle where the slayers dance, but she doesn't join in, and I don't think it's just because she is afraid to or separated from them as their leader; I think she just doesn't feel the same pull to party in a large group, and doesn't quite understand it.
Incidentally, I've oddly never had trouble identifying with Riley in season five. Like, not in a "hey, he sure knows how to deal with this maturely and isn't a jerk!" kind of way. But I never have any trouble knowing where he's coming from. I was once having a relationship fall apart while my girlfriend's grandfather was dying, and it was very hard to deal with the fact that I wanted to be there for her, but couldn't do anything, and that I really wanted to leave. There was another relationship where I was dating someone who had great emotional pain and huge responsibilities, and it was tough knowing how little I could do. It's still the same now: I haven't experienced much loss personally, so I identify much more with the Scooby act in "The Body" than the Buffy or Dawn ones. Of course, I managed to deal with the initial relationship without going to vamp hookers, so, score one for me. And I hurt for Buffy so much.