Looking for love in all the wrong (TV) places
As ABC’s The Bachelorette wraps up season whatever (who’s counting anymore?), we once again see that finding love on manufactured dates is next to impossible and participants can’t seem to figure out why until their eyes are full of tears and they leave heartbroken. OK, maybe I’m editorializing a bit, but that’s what I’m paid to do.
During the last few weeks of the season I chatted with some of the booted-out tools – uh, I mean, guys – from Desiree’s attempt at finding love. Most of them remained gentlemen while talking about Des but I don’t think they were concerned about looking like bad guys by speaking their mind.
In past seasons the guys always sugarcoated things so as not to make the Bachelorette look bad, however I put the guys in the hot seat when interviewing them for my syndicated radio shows.
Asked, “What is Des’s best quality and what is her worst quality?” the answers weren’t what I expected. OK, one of them was.
Mike (I don’t remember if he was one of the Mikes or a Mikey – that’s how important these reality show folks are when they don’t even use a last name) said, after humming and hawing, that Des’s worst quality “was that she didn’t pick me.” Wow. Groundbreaking, hey?
But Zak W. – he’s the one who was introduced to viewers naked at his house, and stepped out of the limo without his shirt on to meet Des – said, “I think she’s looking for someone that has maybe a darker or a sadder part that, unfortunately, I never had and I didn’t have a sob story to tell her. She brought up that she wanted somebody to come back at the end of the day and bare their heart and everything that had gone wrong,” noting he didn’t do that.
In the end, this season was no different: it was discovered (shockingly, apparently) that one of the guys had a girlfriend and they flew her out to confront him, that guys didn’t feel the same way about Des and decided to leave which broke her heart and made them look like major D-bags. It’s the stuff regular viewers expect from the show now.
I get emails from people who watch just to see the emotional train wreck and drama the show brings every week and it’s no longer hoping a couple finds love in the end.
