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"There&amp;#x27;s this thing we do when we start a new, addictive show, something that comes as easily to us as slipping on our best TV-watching sweatpants: We ID the couple who don&amp;#x27;t know they&amp;#x27;re a couple yet and start rooting for their destiny, squirrel-hoarding little clues and near-miss moments along the way. On most shows, the clues aren&amp;#x27;t subtle. The near-misses, much as I love &amp;#x27;em, tend to be a tad contrived. I don&amp;#x27;t need a GIF for this one; I just need you to recall how many times you&amp;#x27;ve heard this exchange: Girl (to Boy, while swinging from neck of newly acquired flame): &amp;quot;Hey, what did you want to tell me earlier? We got interrupted by a ringing phone/distracted by a streaker/sidelined when one of us was hit in the face by a flying banana.&amp;quot; Boy (almost confessing his feelings, then not): &amp;quot;... Nothing/... Just, thank you/... Just, Happy New Year.&amp;quot; Switch roles. Rinse. Repeat, preferably until show is eligible for syndication. We expect all of it; we embrace all of it. But we can do this routine in our sleep, no matter what the show is. Unless the show is The Mindy Project. It struck me while watching last night&amp;#x27;s episode: Mindy is the first series I&amp;#x27;ve ever watched without keeping an antsy countdown to the star-crossed duo&amp;#x27;s big moment. It&amp;#x27;s not that I&amp;#x27;m not into Mindy and Danny&amp;#x27;s vibe. It&amp;#x27;s that I&amp;#x27;m really into every second of their blissful ignorance to their (possible) destiny, and that&amp;#x27;s because the show has plotted and paced their journey so originally. Just consider the last two episodes we&amp;#x27;ve seen. Last week, Mindy crashed at Danny&amp;#x27;s apartment, and when he misread her Cliff references, we almost went over the edge. It was totally thrilling. Plug New Girl&amp;#x27;s Nick and Jess into the same scenario a year ago, and I would have spent the week between that episode and this week&amp;#x27;s yearning to Bat for Lashes and praying to see more progress. But what happened on this week&amp;#x27;s Mindy? He slept with Jenna Elfman. She flirted through Cliff&amp;#x27;s text-shame. They returned to their normal interactive pattern of trading insults and ultimately having each other&amp;#x27;s backs. We didn&amp;#x27;t get anywhere near the edge. And I didn&amp;#x27;t mind a bit, because I love what they have now, in this space before they have a fling or a thing. See, what makes Mindy and Danny&amp;#x27;s dynamic so irresistible is that it isn&amp;#x27;t out of the TV playbook&amp;amp;#8212;it&amp;#x27;s out of the life playbook. The show has resisted the temptation to play to our pop-culture familiarities and chosen a more realistic road when it comes to this romance. I&amp;#x27;m guessing few of us got into our best relationship by riding out a steadily soaring trajectory. I&amp;#x27;m also guessing that, in our collective antagonistic friend-crush experience, not every spat along the way was filled with very thinly disguised &amp;quot;I LIKE YOU&amp;quot; missiles. Sometimes, a barb is just a barb. A bad mood is just a bad mood. And people who are used to being blunt with each other don&amp;#x27;t switch it up out of the blue. The same is true in Mindy and Danny&amp;#x27;s world. They don&amp;#x27;t bubble-wrap each other&amp;#x27;s egos. They don&amp;#x27;t obsess over each other&amp;#x27;s hookups. They just live, and, because of circumstances and choice, live through a lot side by side. Instead of teaching us they have chemistry, the show has given us a front-row seat to their history. And you know what? I want them to confess. I&amp;#x27;m excited for them to kiss. But when they do, I&amp;#x27;ll miss this time, the time before. Because though we&amp;#x27;ve long been trained to see that fated hookup as the brass ring, Mindy has given us a carousel ride so good, I&amp;#x27;m always forgetting to reach."^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.glamour.com/entertainment/blogs/obsessed/2013/11/mindy-project-mindy-danny>