Recently I have been struggling to cope with the inevitability that my job is going to adversely affect my personal life and make it difficult for me to date and develop a long-term intimate relationship with someone. However, recently, I was fortunate enough to be given a bit of much needed hope while watching an episode of one of my favorite television shows, “Scrubs.”

One of the major plots in the episode that I’m referring to involves a main character, Elliot, and her boyfriend (at the time) Sean. Their particular storyline during the episode deals with how Elliot’s devotion to her career makes it difficult for her to consistently put Sean and their relationship first.

At the beginning of the episode she stands Sean up but he is very understanding of the situation and how work had caused her to miss their date; however, when this situation replicates itself later in the episode Sean loses his patience and they break up because he doesn’t want to always play second fiddle to Elliot’s job.

Fortunately, at the end of the episode, Elliot has an epiphany and relays the message to Sean. That is, because of her crazy job, she won’t always be able to put him first the way she would like, but that she promises whenever she can he’ll be her top priority. The result of this impassioned plea by Elliot to save the relationship ultimately works and they kiss as the episode fades to black.

Corny endings aside, the message definitely hit home with me and gave me some much-needed hope. Maybe this idea came from a fictional television character, but in the end it does pose a feasible scenario that I’d one day (soon) hope to find for myself. All I need now is to find someone special enough to make that impassioned plea to so that hopefully it saves us the same way it saved Elliot and Sean.