Fish Market

You meet someone cute at a party. You actually like them, the conversation flows, there’s chemistry. A kiss. The next day you’re texting, hanging out, and then you’re in bed. And for the first minute it’s good—you’re into it, your brain’s already there. Then you smell it. Not roses. Not anything close. And suddenly the only word in your head is: fish.

Nobody teaches you how to navigate this. You can’t just say, Hey, we need to talk about your body, because that would destroy her. But you also can’t pretend you didn’t notice, because now it’s all you can smell and the whole situation’s dying on the spot. You’re stuck between being honest and being cruel, and there’s no winning move.

Todd Strauss-Schulson made a short film about exactly this scenario. Big Pussy follows a guy in the same position—he really likes this girl, but he’s got to find some way to tell her without wrecking things. He asks his friends for advice. Everyone’s got a theory. Then everything goes sideways in ways he didn’t anticipate. It’s funny and brutal and deeply awkward, which is exactly how these things usually go in real life.

The film doesn’t pretend there’s a clean solution. His friends suggest all kinds of things, and none of them work. Because there isn’t a right way to say something like that. You just have to do it, and it’s going to suck, and then you both have to figure out what happens next.