She Ventures Forth

In the U.S. we're obsessed with finding "The One." When we have relationships that don't end in marriage, we tend to see them as either stepping stones for our "real" relationship, or as stumbling blocks that have gotten in the way of our true path and destiny. The mindset of "The One" is what The Bachelor is based on. Never mind that the Bachelor is always sure his future wife is in the room of 25 women that the show has picked out for him, and never mind that he is (almost) always sure he has chosen the "right one" at the end of each season. This quest for perfect wedded bliss is what draws so many women into the series. We judge the female contestants based on what they do or don't do, and we try to mirror those in our own relationships so that we can find our special one. Even if we don't out and out say that we are mimicking or rejecting their behavior, I'm sure many of us sit in front of the TV screen going "Of course he rejected her," or, "What a nut case." Let's admit it, at times even the best of us can be catty bitches.

Women watch The Bachelor for the very same reason that it is criticized and made fun of. In all of its 14 seasons, only two couples have actually gotten married. One bride was the runner up swapped for the winner after the show was over, and the other couple weren't even on The Bachelor but The Bachelorette. Every other couple has split up, and often rather publicly. Not that there haven't been other Bachelor weddings, but these are made up of contestants who meet each other at Bachelor reunion events. Which makes sense. Let's face it, a room full of 200 plus people making up an equal number of men and women is much more likely to have lasting hookups than one contestant with 25, especially when the one goes around making out with multiple women at once.

As I watched the "Women Tell All" reunion episode tonight, it struck me that while the show purports to be about finding the ONE love of your life, maybe it isn't really so much about the destination as it is about the journey. What struck me today is that the current bachelor, Brad Womack, wouldn't let any girls apologize for anything they thought they did wrong. Ashley H., who had his heart from the beginning and let insecurity overwhelm her as the show went on, apologized to Brad on stage saying that she was at fault for things ending badly. He replied with something to the effect of, "Never apologize, because you are an exceptional woman. Maybe I just wasn't the guy to bring out that confidence in you." And really, can you blame her? I would be insecure too if a guy I had a great date with started kissing all these other girls. Who wouldn't get jealous? He had also sent away Ashley S. -- a girl much like myself who always has great first dates and then the guy says he's not looking for anything -- and she asked Brad tonight what he meant when he said she would make someone a wonderful wife, but not him. "Who am I to say if you would make a good wife or not?" he responded kindly, helping the girl realize she was not defective, just one girl that one guy didn't want to spend the rest of his life with. Who knows, this may all be a plot by the producers to boost women's ego and have them continue to watch the show, but it worked for me.

For the first time in a long time, my head is filled not with finding love, nor my medical condition, but with an entrepreneurial endeavor. For the past day and a half my roommate and I have been consumed with a business venture that kind of took on a life of its own. While because of my anonymity I won't go into the details of my idea, it combines my love of writing, my sappiness, my non-traditional upbringing, and my plethora of gay friends. Suddenly I'm not worried about what I will say to D or when I should say it. I write what I want, when I want, and he responds. In between his responses I'm not thinking about when I will receive the next one but am lost in my current project. Finally I have something I can focus my attention on even when in flareups, and with this quest, it's all in my hands. I do believe "The One" is out there, but making my own way is what's important right now. As is knowing that all those relationships that didn't turn into marriage (and the one that did) were not roadblocks or stepping stones but merely connections made between two people that had a start time and an end time. Sometimes things really are just that simple.

The reluctant housewife of Orange County

In scripted TV, the beautiful driven woman always leaves the manipulative, controlling man. In Reality TV, she stays. The woman in scripted TV may struggle for awhile. She may sob to her girlfriends only to return to the one who made her cry, sure that her tears are her fault. But by the end of the script she is free of him and possesses a new sense of self-importance and the ability to realize her own worth. Reality TV tells another story -- and one sadly one that is much more frequently close to the truth.

Last night I finished Season One of The Real Housewives of Orange County. I'm hardly new to reality TV. I've watched Laguna Beach, The Hills, and Keeping up with the Kardashians religiously, while well aware that aspects of the shows are scripted. What I know is never scripted though is the actual relationships between the men and women. The producers may decide when and where they meet, but what they say is all them.

Laguna Beach was my first initiation into relational Reality TV (as opposed to competitive, like Survivor). At the time I was trying to get over T, who to this day is the man I still feel was closest to "the one." While he said I was his favorite contemporary author, put my novel behind a glass case, spent hours talking with me, taking dance lessons, and my holding hand while ice skating in the park (among other acts of intimacy that I won't get into), he was so elusive that I would go weeks without hearing from him, breaking plans just by not showing up to them. During this time, I was flipping through channels one night and got hooked on Laguna. When Jason got tired of his girlfriend Jessica and started retreating, Jessica latched on even tighter, going so far as to text him while snowboarding with her girlfriends, sitting in the snow in the middle of a slope with snowboarders rushing down the hill all around her. Suddenly I became completely mortified by the drunk, crying messages I’d left on T’s phone and the time I saw his truck leaving a parking space and tried to chase him down the street with hands full of groceries. He was in no way manipulative and controlling like the other men I'll describe here, but I was still doing myself a disservice by letting a man make me miserable.


In The Hills, Audrina was always eager to reunite with "Justin Bobby" even though their coupling had to be on his terms and with no claim at exclusivity on his part. She was supposed to remain otherwise unattached. Then Kourtney Kardashian kept taking Scott back even though he was a violent alcoholic. And yesterday I started mutely yelling at the TV when 24-year-old Jo took back 40-year-old Slade, crying that she had failed him even though he was the one who made her stay home with his kids (who only came to visit twice a week) instead of getting a fulfilling job to go with her corporate degree. She "failed" by going back to work against his orders.


While Jason and Scott knew they were jerks, Slade had no idea. He is the kind of man who is convinced that he is the quintessential nice guy, but in reality is down right abusive with the way he separates his fiance from everything that would interest her, speaks to her in a condescending voice with phrases like "That's unacceptable behavior," and insists that any unhappiness is her fault. She could have had anyone she wanted, and instead she stayed with one of the most "charming" abusive men I have ever seen.

I worry about the next generation and the messages that young women are being sent by the actions of those they watch on TV. And part of my worry is because I do see this sort of relationship being played out in real life, with me -- and with many others. I wonder though if Reality TV makes us put up with abusive men less because we do see it on the screen. One can always assert that scripted TV isn't real life, and while Reality TV isn't real life either, seeing a woman put up with crap from the man who is supposed to love her makes us cringe in a way that putting up with the abuse ourselves might not. Things are always more clear without emotional attachments, and maybe seeing these men take advantage of these beautiful, confident women and make them into subservient crying messes will help real live women to avoid the same fate. Maybe if Reality TV had existed in the mid-90s, it wouldn't have taken me so long to break up with my "charmingly" manipulative and controlling boyfriend D.

I won't admit that Reality TV is the best way to be spending my time, but there are positives to everything, and every time I yell at the screen over a messed up relationship I feel it makes me that much stronger regards to not putting up with any abuse myself. And while some of these girls never seem to free themselves of their controlling partners, the producers of the show are well aware that female viewers will be disgusted by the subservience and present the relationship in such a way that we know they are disgusted as well (though they also sadly know it makes for good TV -- just think of Spencer and Heidi). It also makes me cringe at bleached blond hair, yellow skin, and fake boobs -- all of which Jo has thus far avoided, at least in Season One. I want to take her natural drive and beauty, see it in myself, and not be her, by not letting any man -- or reality show -- stand in my way.