#As an adult man Ford isolated himself from almost everybody to study monsters and get the recognition he craved and look where it got him!

[sirghostheart]

I honestly don't get people who thought Dipper should have accepted Ford's apprenticeship offer or that he was once again bending over backwards to please Mabel by rejecting it, as if the apprenticeship and Mabel Land weren't two sides of the same coin.

Everybody can tell Mabel Land was a bad coping mechanism to Mabel -a way to have her avoid facing reality. But Ford's apprenticeship would've be the same thing to Dipper if he accepted it.

Since the begining of the show Dipper wanted to fastfoward childhood with his attempts to woo Wendy, lying about his age to seem more mature and skipping trick r treat to go to a teenage party, and getting the oportunity to just skip middle and high school and go straight to studying the paranormal like an adult with Ford is just more of that. It's another form of escapism, even if it seems more "grown-up".

When he gives up the apprenticeship, he's not giving up his dreams -if they defeat Bill he can come back to Gravity Falls with Mabel and study the paranormal as much as he likes and he even had a plan for making a ghost-hunting show when he grew up, as he told Ford as the latter was doing his offer.

Instead, he promisses to have Mabel's back and vice-versa as they've always had before, because as much as reality and growing up sucks, it's the people around you that make it bearable.