Showgirl: "Michelle, you have a visitor. That man who always brings you presents and tries to take you out to dinner."
Michelle: "Ugh. He's odd, and weird, and technically a stalker."
Showgirl: "Literally a stalker."
Michelle: "If we start talking about that this pilot will never get moving. Suffice to say I don't deserve to be loved, and need some kind of stalker to talk me into it."

...What was that you were saying about teaching young women important lessons? But I guess coming from the Haus of Sunflowers and "I built you a car" it's not as bad as it sounds to us. The guy's been coming every month for over a year, every time he's in Vegas, and he is just a slow learner. Besides, Michelle's got that audition.

HUBBELL

Fawns over her excessively, which she loves but also hates, because she is confused about her agency and also very unsatisfied with life. On this subject, Tiger Mom has a bit of a point: If your kid figures out early what their talent is, you have got to beat them into following it, or else they will end up Vegas showgirls. Michelle threw away a promising -- as we'll see, an incredibly promising -- career, essentially because she is a lazy person, and is now paying the price in angst dollars and a rapidly less and less valuable status quo. Waiting for Jimmy Hewson to save her from herself. (But not this Hubbell.)

Hubbell: "African roses and the new fall pumps!"
(Hubbell: Is not gay. He is actually a shoe entrepreneur. Not that gay people are necessarily into ladies shoes or dressing their ladies in shoes, not all of them, not by a long shot, but the way that looked on the page it just seemed like I should say something.)

Michelle thanks him, graciously and goofily, and he just keeps piling it on, and before you know it he's saying shit like, "I took the liberty of making us a dinner reservation for tonight" and other stalker stuff. You know, I don't think the Friend Zone is a very valid reason to be shitty about women, but even more than that I don't think the Friend Zone is really a thing: It's called trying to be nice about the fact that I'm clearly not interested.

And so when you push it, or stalk, or whine about how Nice Guys Lose or Women Only Like Assholes, or complain about the Friend Zone itself, it's a really gross expression of privilege in at least two ways, because men are told they can have whatever they want -- nothing new -- but women are in turn told to never piss anybody (men) off, so it's a car accident of two things that we shouldn't be taught in the first place. What you're saying is that you think you're in love, but you have no idea what that means, or else you would respect the woman enough to take her at her word instead of trying to trick her or wear her down.