I hate you, Zach Braff. I know you’re a Northwestern alumn and everything, but whatever. Okay? I know, my disdain for you seems kind of unfounded, but just let me say my piece.

A couple of days ago, I watched this little movie you made called Garden State. And I loved it. I loved the characters’ senses of humor, I loved the mysteriously sexy rock quarries where people supposedly fall in love and make out in garbage bags and I secretly fantasized about morphing into Natalie Portman — the ultimate Jersey girl. Your portrayal of the New Jersey suburb was fresh and intriguing, and I just wanted to be a part of it. Then, I started thinking about my own hometown, my own “New jersey suburb.”

I come from Freehold, N.J., which is about as intriguing as bagels. Actually, the most intriguing thing about Freehold is that 70 percent of the McMansion developments were once cornfields. I remember standing in one 10 years ago. My parents were recently divorced, so my father and I picked up and left the very wealthy, very hip North Jersey and visited the plot where our new house was supposed to stand. As much as I tried, Zach, I couldn’t see anything but husks for miles. That’s what Freehold used to be like — a kind of place so undiscovered that you wouldn’t have to hide if you wanted to.

Soon after K. Hovnanian built my development, other contractors took what was left of the fields. To accommodate the new homes that brought in new families, new schools were built. Everything was new, including the classy tiles cemented onto the floor of the Freehold Raceway Mall. A sophisticated movie star such as yourself might even enjoy our shopping facilities. Freehold, of course, had to cater to the new buyers who sprung from the new families who lived in the new homes. While I was growing up, I realized that Freehold was stuck between two places: an emblematic pinpoint of the Garden State and consumer-related, sprawling confusion. Garden State itself painfully widened the schism for me. I guess watching your movie made me realize that my town was not part of the film that people all over the world fell in love with.

I grew up in the sprawling confusion. And even though over seven ice cream joints sprung up within the same 1.5-mile radius, I began to realize that businesses weren’t the only things setting Freehold apart from Zach Braff-ville. I attended almost 10 years of public school with the most boisterous group of people I have ever met. On Friday nights, sixth graders would stand outside of the mall (the side with the giant carousel) and smoke cigarettes. Were you ever a mallrat, Zach? Neither was I. Though I can’t forget how at the beginning of the school year, the newbies would cough because they wouldn’t know how to inhale the smoke; by November, everybody caught on.

The freshmen ruled Loews Cinema. People would climb over the rusting metal barrier that separated the road from the mall, and walk to the movies instead of drive to extend their weekend festivities. “WHATCHU LOOKIN’ AT PUNK?” I’d always hear some prepubescent kid decked out in Roca Wear shout. “YOU WANNA START SOMETHIN’?”

I don’t remember being miserable after I watched Garden State. Only in retrospect. What I remember is laughing a lot: These kind of antics give our dull lives flavor. As much as I hate to disagree with with you, Zach, beauty doesn’t have to be in the breakdown. It can be industrialized, commercialized. Manufactured. I’m tired of looking for deeper meanings because I love those Ed Hardy T-shirts girls used to wear during gym, “cawfee” and Terrace’s, the deli we high school kids loved a little too much. So maybe I should be saying thanks to you instead. You woke me up. I can finally smell the New Jersey diner food that everybody complains about. And it’s wonderful.