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My Least Relatable Story: The Parisian Dentist

2022-01-25 · story · John · 3:58 · watch on YouTube

Topic: Personal life (also: Books & writing) · mode: Personal update

John tells of a 2015 Paper Towns press junket in Paris where anxiety made him clench his jaw until a tooth ached, and of the impossibly handsome dentist who named his physical and psychological pain; the moral is a need capably met by a compassionate expert.

What is said

The parts of the video and what is said in each (★ — how much it matters to the video).

00:00:00 — The 2015 Paper Towns press tour with Nat Wolff and Cara Delevingne; what press junkets are like; 18 hours in Paris

  • ★★ In 2015 John, Nat Wolff and Cara Delevingne travelled to eight countries in two weeks to promote the Paper Towns movie. — 00:00:00 · Paper Towns (film)
  • ★★ John finds press junkets a little excruciating: hours under hot lights with a new reporter every eight minutes, where one stupid remark can cause trouble for everyone on the movie, a mix of monotony and terror. — 00:00:29
  • ★ In Paris for only about 18 hours, John saw little beyond a ridiculous Eiffel Tower photo shoot, whose picture Sarah insisted on framing. (playful) — 00:00:29 · Sarah Urist Green

00:00:58 — Anxiety, a clenched jaw and a toothache; the lavish Paris dental office and its handsome dentist

  • ★★★ In a hot, crowded, windowless hotel room, with Nat reminding him to breathe and drink water, John's spiraling anxiety made him clench his jaw for hours until a tooth began to ache. — 00:00:58
  • ★★ Sent to a dentist by the hotel concierge, John and his publicist Elyse were rushed to a dental office whose waiting area looked like a billionaire bachelor's living room. (playful) — 00:01:27
  • ★★ The dentist arrived on a motorcycle and shook out gorgeous hair; John calls him the best-looking person he has ever seen. (playful) — 00:01:56

  • ★★★ The dentist told John he had two pains, physical and psychological, reshaped the aching tooth with a drill and told him to stop clenching; John returned, breathed, drank water and felt better. — 00:02:26

    “you have two pains, the physical pain and the psychological pain”

00:02:55 — Hindsight: the first sign of a psychological storm; the moral of a need met by a compassionate expert; sign-off

  • ★★★ In retrospect, John says, the Parisian dentist was the first sign of a psychological storm that would eventually derail his life for a while; the fancy dentist did not save him from it. — 00:02:55
  • ★★★ John says the story's moral is having a need capably met by a compassionate expert, which should not be an unrelatable story at all. (hedged) — 00:02:55
  • ★★ John hopes viewers' needs will be met by a compassionate expert, which he thinks everyone deserves, and thanks the Paris dentist, whose name he cannot remember. — 00:02:55

Humor (significant)

  • John's Paris hotel room was much nicer than his actual house. — 00:00:58

    “also cost more per night than four months of my mortgage.”

  • The dentist's waiting room has a cowskin rug, 19th-century paintings and designer furniture, with magazines fanned on a glass table. — 00:01:56

    “but also issues of both Playboy and Playgirl.”

  • A dentist rides up on a motorcycle and shakes out a gorgeous head of hair. — 00:02:26

    “he's the best looking person I've ever seen.”

  • John wonders how the dentist afforded the impressionist paintings in his office. — 00:03:24

    “Was he like a billionaire who sidelighted as a dentist? Like he was a dentist for the love of the game?”

Threads in this video

Mentioned

Central: Paris

Also: anxiety disorder · Cara Delevingne · Eiffel Tower · Elyse Marshall · hindsight · Nat Wolff · Paper Towns (film) · Sarah Urist Green

Also centred on Paris: Feeling About Paris

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