Of the four main men on The Big Bang Theory,
Raj Koothrappali, played by Kunal Nayyar was
perhaps the most socially awkward.
Raj's difficulties with women resulted in
some painfully uncomfortable situations — one
of which involved Raj doing the absolute worst
thing he's ever done.
“You went out with him, I didn’t.”
Throughout The Big Bang Theory, Raj the self-proclaimed
romantic of the group tries to have a successful
relationship with a woman, but falls horribly
short for a number of reasons.
On more than one occasion, he requests that
his parents organize an arranged marriage
with a woman from a "good Indian family."
And every single one of them ends up failing
miserably.
A list of his other romantic mishaps include:
dating two women at once, rifling through
a girl’s closets and drawers when she leaves
him alone in her house; leaving one girl for
another after the briefest of meetings with
the latter, and then coming crawling back
to his ex when a girl turns him away; pushing
women way out of their comfort zone; referring
to women he's not attracted to as "fatties
and uggos"; and spying on his fiancée and
that's not to even mention him fantasizing
about his friends' wives and girlfriends throughout
the show, even almost hooking up with Penny
one night.
“What were you thinking?”
Easily the worst thing Raj did, however, was
to Issabella.
On the season 10 episode entitled "The Brain
Bowl Incubation," Raj meets the beautiful
maintenance worker when she comes into his
lab at Caltech to clean late one night.
Despite the instant spark between them, it
becomes clear that Raj has a problem with
Issabella's job.
After hitting it off with Issabella in his
lab, Raj h elps her clean the bathrooms.
During their cleaning session, he decides
to ask Issabella out on a date, but she explains
she doesn't have time to date while working
two jobs.
Before leaving the bathroom, he tries to convince
Issabella to change her mind, and she again
turns him down.
The rest of the gang quickly picks up on the
fact that Raj has met someone,
“You’re dating somebody who is it?”
But Raj makes a fatal and cruel mistake when
he fails to correct their assumption that
she's also an astronomer.
Uh, what?
For a supposedly intelligent man, this is
a stupid move.
Still, Raj cooks up a plan to surprise her
and get the date he wants.
It's a little pushy and desperate after she's
already turned him down twice in the bathroom.
When Issabella next walks into his lab, he's
set up a romantic dinner complete with flowers
and a tablecloth for them to enjoy.
Things seem to be going swimmingly... and
then Howard walks in and casually mentions,
“Oh, yeah, the astronomer.
Raj told us about you…”
You can actually see Issabella's face fall
as she instantly realizes Raj has lied about
her job, and rightly points out that she doesn't
need to waste her time with someone who's
embarrassed by what she does for a living.
She makes a quick exit from the lab, dragging
her cleaning cart with her as she goes.
Raj tries to go after Issabella and apologize,
saying he couldn’t believe how shallow he
was being,
“Honestly, I didn’t think your job would
bother me...and I hate myself for that…”
Fortunately, Issabella has enough respect
for herself to walk away from someone who
clearly won't respect her.
Raj knew what Issabella did before he even
started pursuing her, and continued to chase
her knowing full well he would never be comfortable
telling his friends that she's a cleaning
lady at the university and not another scientist.
What exactly did he think was going to happen?
It's such a blatant lie that there's no way
anyone will convince us Raj truly thought
their relationship would be able to go anywhere
without the lie coming out.
The shame he felt over Issabella's job is
even more ironic when we consider the fact
that, at that point in time, Raj was still
living off his father's fortune to pay for
his rent, maid, car, and credit card bills
something he seems oddly proud of.
“No, I grew up with a house full of servants
and now I have a cleaning lady who is lovely
and .who I have great respect for.”
At least Issabella is making and living off
her own money.
Raj really has no leg to stand on with his
classism here.
“In my defense, I have a car whose doors
open up like this… oh I’m sorry…”
It's never acceptable to make someone else
feel ashamed about what they do, and Raj hit
rock bottom with his treatment of Issabella
during this episode of The Big Bang Theory.
Watching him lie to his friends about Issabella's
job makes it easy to understand why Raj has
so many problems with women.
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