Nick Miller Is the Quarantine Role Model I Didn’t Know I Needed

It’s January 2021. I accidentally slept in . . . again. I roll out of bed and trudge down the stairs of my parents’ home for a cup of tea and some cereal, before attempting day six of my New Year yoga challenge. “This will be the year I do the splits,” I tell myself.

It will probably last a few more days, two weeks tops.

I fall over, again, cursing Adriene Mishler for ever making me think I could be flexible enough for this stretch. New Year’s resolutions are always an exercise in futility, and this isn’t the first time I have pledged my commitment to YouTube’s patron saint of yoga, with the ache in my knees exposing my penchant for quitting. It seems my legs just don’t bend that way and potentially never will.

Today isn’t my day. This month isn’t my month. Last year wasn’t my year, and it doesn’t seem like 2021 is shaping up much differently.

The UK’s coronavirus lockdown first began in late March of 2020, and I felt incredibly restless for the first few months. For a somewhat-extroverted person, swapping meeting up with my friends in pubs for Zoom quizzes on Friday nights was an upheaval. Plans to visit friends were smashed, as they too scattered across the country to their family homes. How was I supposed to blow off steam when I was stuck in my childhood bedroom? My best friend of nearly a decade may have been a mere two-minute walk away, but suddenly I was rightfully forbidden from seeing her. I was stupefied. Such a prospect would have seemed impossible just weeks earlier.

Without the freedom I was used to, I found myself with more free time than I’d ever had in my adult life. I worked endless overtime shifts at my supermarket job to fill up the hours that I used to spend lazing in friends’ bedrooms, recalling the hilarious events of the night before. I went for regular runs to get out of the house and soak up the warmer weather. But I still couldn’t escape feelings of inadequacy that came with having so much time on my hands. An irritating restlessness coursed under my skin, demanding attention, defining every restful moment as an idle waste of time. Like an itch in the middle of my back, not even the most eye-watering yoga poses could reach it, to try to quell the uneasiness.

Even though I was putting more effort than ever into spending my time wisely, the sheer abundance of it meant that exercise and reading George Orwell every day still felt inadequate. Just a few months earlier, this would have no doubt sparked sanctimonious gloating about my elevated lifestyle. I wasn’t being as productive as I could be. Why wasn’t I using this time to do everything I always said I would if I “just had the time”? Learning to cook (properly) and moving beyond conversational French had never been more accessible, and yet I still hadn’t perfected either. I hadn’t even started work on my New York Times bestseller.

Nick Miller provides us with a little bit of fantasy to indulge in, even if it isn’t all that fantastical.

So I took up yoga. I mentally recast myself as someone who knew what the hell they were doing. I wouldn’t have to feel jealous of the fitness influencers proudly flaunting their lockdown glow ups—I would be like them too! I could satiate my need for productivity with the Zen sensation of a successful downward dog, or whatever. There was no better time to reinvent myself, right? But today, after another failed attempt at an eagle pose, I mutter a sarcastic namaste to the instructor on the screen. I decide to retreat to my bed and the comfort of the only real thing that has helped ease the restlessness I can barely seem to escape in quarantine: Nick Miller.

Nick is not a new discovery for me. I first watched New Girl at the ripe old age of thirteen, at the apex of adolescent self-esteem issues and trying to be an adult before my time. I found the whole cast endearing and the quirky and quotable humour delightful, something that I could replicate in conversation with my friends. As we struggled through our awkward teens, my sister and I would religiously wait for new episodes to watch together every week, and we’d furiously text our friends to make sure they too were watching.

But, now, things are different. I no longer have to wait a whole week to see a new episode since the entire series is at my disposal on Netflix. As I try to find my own way forward in my adulthood, I can more acutely understand the comedy of every character, in their own way, failing to succeed at adult life. In quarantine, this has never been more comforting. And when it comes to reassuring me that I’m far from alone in my self-doubt, no character inspires more confidence than Nick Miller.

To the uninitiated, Nick Miller is abrasive and stubborn, he drinks too much, and he is undeniably lazy. But these traits shaken together produce the perfect cocktail for someone enduring a lockdown and feeling frustrated at a sense of personal stagnation. I related to him deeply, even though he is at least ten years older than me and a proud Chicagoan—our shared experience is limited at best.

Nick is lazy, sure, but he’s also charming. In every area of life, he is determined to do the absolute bare minimum in order to get by, which has never been more appropriate. Clogged toilet? Put soda bottles in the pipes instead of paying for a plumber. Doing paperwork? The due date is the do date. Open a checking account? Never: “A bank is just a paper bag with fancier walls!”

This utter reluctance to do things the normal way—sometimes in ways that would actually make things easier—is perhaps what endears him to me the most. Could you fix plumbing issues with old Coca-Cola cans? Probably not, but Nick Miller could, from years of dedicated commitment to his own laziness. In wanting to do nothing, he has perfected the art of ordered disorder. That may seem like an oxymoron, but haven’t we all been trying to make sense out of chaos since last March?

In watching an episode where Nick, in a manic desire to prove his competence, overwaters a cactus to the point of flooding the loft’s kitchen, I began to question why on earth I was being so hard on myself. After nearly a year of on-and-off lockdowns, I think it’s fair to say that we’re way past the days of whipping up dalgona coffees on TikTok. A growing sense of instability has become a custom of UK life, with government ministers constantly contradicting each other and the scientific experts advising their decisions.

Trying to reinvent myself under these circumstances is just unreasonable, so seeing a character on-screen be so content with his own lack of productivity brings me so much warmth. In one particularly salient scene, Nick emerges from his bedroom, coughing, and says, “Don’t trust your government, kids,” wearing only a dressing gown. For the Covid-19 pandemic, no other character could have given me such validation.

For any self-deprecating comment I posited to myself during quarantine, Nick Miller was there to provide some welcome reassurance. “I am not a successful adult,” he says in one episode. “I don’t eat vegetables and/or take care of myself.” Me neither, Nick. And in a pandemic, that’s okay.

I’m not the only one who has looked to Nick in this time of crisis, either. New Girl entered a renewed phase of fandom during quarantine, and Nick in particular has found a home in the hearts of touch-starved fans (yes, I feel that’s an important factor to note, and no, I won’t comment any further on it). The character began to trend on Twitter after one user distilled the essence of his appeal: “nick miller simultaneously sets the bar so incredibly high and yet so unbelievably low for men.”

It’s exactly this juxtaposition of highs and lows that I found comfort in. In reality, Nick would be far from the ideal man. His laziness would be incredibly irritating, much like his unyielding commitment to stinginess. He seems to lack the drive and ambition that can make everyday life more exciting. But these aren’t normal times. Everyday life as we knew it, at least for now, doesn’t exist anymore. Nick Miller provides us with a little bit of fantasy to indulge in, even if it isn’t all that fantastical.

When our days so often blend together and going to the grocery store is a calendar event, seeing a love story play out in the security of the New Girl loft gives us that little bit of escapism, while still staying at home. Nick and Jess, the show’s main romantic leads, traverse the majority of their relationship’s beginnings at home, whereas when they step outside, the cracks begin to show. With a car crash of a first date and a run-in with the police on their romantic Mexican getaway, inside the apartment is a safe haven—one that viewers aren’t at all eager to leave.

In romantic moments, Nick’s chaos transforms itself into a rugged handsomeness that is utterly compelling to watch. At the end of “Cooler,” after he and Jess have fended off a potential attacker from their front door—a Saint Bernard—Nick grabs Jess’s arm. He pulls her in close, and they share what has become known as one of the greatest first kisses in television history.

I don’t think anyone is expecting that kind of sweeping drama to transpire while cooped up in quarantine (unless you have a crush on your roommate, too, then go for it, girl). But there is a certain comfort Nick offers in a love so secure that it is best when he is at home. Paired with the passion that he and Jess share, it’s pure escapism. And seeing someone as haphazard as Nick find so much clarity, while still being a bit of a mess, is like being wrapped in a soothing bear hug. (The same kind of hug Nick would give, which I think we all need right now.)

The last year has undoubtedly taken a toll on our collective mental health, and I am no exception to this. The UK’s coronavirus death toll, which rose at an astronomical rate after government-sanctioned household mixing over the holidays, recently surpassed 100,000. By any measure, that is a horrendous figure. But for a country with all the resources provided to us to fight an epidemic, it is truly unconscionable. It is enough to make the strongest people feel hopeless, and any light relief—especially in the form of the world’s most charmingly chaotic bartender—should be celebrated.

Seeing Nick’s imperfections play out in a way that shows he is not a failure, just human, is exactly what I needed to get me through quarantine. If the houseplants I love end up dying, then it isn’t the end of the world. If I can’t master the eagle pose, I’ll survive. If the work I actually do doesn’t turn out as expected, then I can give myself some time to wallow, just as Nick does: “Let me hate myself and everything that I have created.” I’ll retreat to New Girl, and Nick will be there as a reminder that there is enough to be celebrated in just getting through the day.

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