Productive Delinquent Relationships

A variation on the "rake" is the delinquent. Delinquent romances fall into two categories: the clean-cut lover + a delinquent; two delinquents together. 

Delinquents together is particularly charming. )In this case, I using "delinquent" in the "not good at school" sense.) 

In Family Ties, Nick and Mallory are impressively functional. Neither is good at school, and Nick dropped out before they met. However, like Kyle from Last Man Standing (see below), Nick encourages Mallory to attend college. Both Nick and Kyle are inherent gentleman who put another's welfare first. They are also both wise about life if not about books. 

In both cases, the drop-out is encouraged to complete a certain level of education. Mallory gets Alex to help Nick achieve his G.E.D., which in the 1980s was enough to move Nick up the socio-economic ladder. (Nowadays, Mallory would get Alex to get Nick to complete a trade certificate, and Nick would go on to make more money than everybody else in the family.) 

Speaking of changes in educational expectations, Kyle--who exhibits impressive and believable growth throughout the Last Man Standing series-- eventually commits to going to college because he wants to become a pastor and needs an education to serve in the places he wants to serve. Both he and Mandy acknowledge that getting a degree is going to be hard for him. He is not naturally academic, but he is exceptional with people and is willing to undergo the potential ordeal of getting through the necessary classes. 

As an English instructor, I admire the reality check here: education is hard; it isn't supposed to be easy, and it isn't unfair that it isn't easy. 

Nagisa from Nagahama to Be or Not to Be by Scarlet Beriko is a high school student who doesn't know what he wants to do with life. He gets good grades but ACTS like a delinquent who is about to give up. He gets upset, however, when Issa, his friend (and eventual boyfriend) does supposedly give up. Issa drops out because he knows that he wants to be a fisherman and he knows how to make it happen (by joining a deep sea fishery for six months). In this case, the supposed delinquent-but-not-really behavior becomes a wake-up call for Nagisa who goes on to discover what he truly cares about. 

The problem with any relationship is that one person can pull the other down. In the above cases, the couple buoy each other up; the relationships have the potential to last because they are productive. 

These delinquents don't want to simply sit around smoking weed and contemplating the nature of mooching. They are consequently more interesting.