The $70 million box office hit I Love You, Man is coming to DVD August 11th.  For those who skipped its theatrical run because the commercials made it look like just another gross-out, full-frontal male nudity romp from the Judd Apatow troupe, take a gander at the Rotten Tomatoes plot summary: In this comedy, Paul Rudd discovers proposing to his girlfriend might have been the easiest part of getting married. Now he has to find a male friend to be his best man . . .   

A man with no friends? As every man weaned on the pop culture of the ‘80s and ‘90s knows, all guys have friends. It’s one of our most cherished pop culture myths, right up there with grown women finding the man-child sexually irresistible, or the damsel in distress getting in a lucky shot at the end of an action flick. No matter how selfish, smelly or rude, a guy can always count on having at least one bro to confide in. Every George Costanza has his Jerry Seinfeld, every Fred Flintstone his Barney Rubble, every Batman his Robin.

But what about us Milhouses who have yet to find our Bart Simpson? We Squiggys without our Lenny? What about the guys like me whose biggest conundrum during our own wedding planning was not whether to sleep with the stripper at the bachelor party but who would throw the bachelor party for us in the first place? Lest you think us freaks who live in our parent’s basements, take a look at the data: according to the American Sociological Review one in four Americans has no one to confide in, family or non-family. That’s more than two and a half times the number of gays and African-Americans in the United States, yet where is our Milk, our Brokeback Mountain, our Malcolm X and our Color Purple?

If you’re one of us, this movie is cause for celebration because it shattered Hollywood’s last taboo. That is, until the Weinsteins greenlight The Horseman and persuade Tobey Maguire to give his role from Sea Biscuit a lovey-dovey makeover. But as I scan the cultural landscape, this once cynical introvert cannot help but think we social isolates have finally entered our Shangri-La: the Golden Age of Social Awkwardness.

Growing up, there were no role models for the friendless freaks like myself. Oh sure, those with long memories might argue every hit ‘80s sitcom had its resident nerd; they were to the '80s what wacky neighbors were to the '90s. But calling Steve Urkel from Family Matters or Skippy from Family Ties role models, or even recognizable human beings, would be like bestowing a posthumous NAACP image award on Stepin Fetchit. Did you actually know anyone in the ‘80s who sported a pocket protector or wore the nerd’s trademark strip of white tape to keep his broken horn-rimmed frames together?

Much like the Jeffersons moved on up in the ‘70s, we introverts are movin’ on up today. I call it the Napoleon Dynamite effect. Ever since that indie movie hit it big, it’s become acceptable to portray people like us, whether we are nerds, geeks or just plain dorks, as human beings instead of stereotypes.  Who among us never pulled a Napoleon Dynamite and surreptitiously snacked on tater tots from the pockets of our parachute pants during a particularly boring English lecture on symbolism in Moby Dick? Even television, that most regressive of mediums, has finally ditched the pocket protector and horned-rimmed frames for the plaid and LASIK look of Jon Cryer on Two and a Half Men.

Napoleon Dynamite broke open the flood gates to the topsy-turvy introvert friendly entertainment world of today. Twenty years ago, your hottest teen stars were extroverts with catch phrases, like Gary “What you talkin’ ‘bout Willis?” Coleman or Joey “Wo!” Lawrence. But today? If three million dollar 30 second spots for his latest movie during the Super Bowl as well as three hit movies and a cult classic TV show all by the ripe young age of 20 are any indication, it is Superbad star Michael Cera, a young man who has made a lucrative career out of playing the perpetually awkward teen.

Steve Carell is another Hollywood hero of the introvert movement. Before his modestly budgeted The Forty Year Old Virgin became a hundred million dollar box office hit, Hollywood contentedly churned out dreck like Josh Hartnett’s 40 Days and 40 Nights in which a young man must courageously give up sex for Lent. This might prove a challenge for the casting couch culture of Hollywood but 40 days and 40 nights without sex is sadly a way of life, and not a sacrifice for Lent, for those of us in flyover country.

Get a life, you might say at this point. Why do you care how Hollywood portrays you? The previously hurtful stereotypes Hollywood perpetuated left the friendless among us feeling like sub-humans. Much like the African American girls in the Brown vs. Board of Education trial preferred white dolls over black, we introverts too learned to hate ourselves and love those we thought of as our extroverted betters. Actors like Michael Cera having the courage to portray socially awkward characters makes us feel normal and not so all alone for once, even if it is only for a fleeting 22 minutes in Arrested Development or 96 minutes in Juno.