Total Pageviews

Tuesday, September 6, 2016

BACHELOR IN PARADISE: THE EENY MEENY MINY MOE OF MARRIAGE





       Bachelor in Paradise! How have I never seen this show before? I've been watching it this season because I'm single now and when I go out, it’s only to buy cat food and bird seed, so my evenings are relatively free for new TV shows.

       The show’s premise is this: Some decent looking twenty-somethings from past seasons of The Bachelor/Bachelorette who learned zero relationship lessons on those shows get drunk daily on a Mexican beach together. Every day or two a new person joins them so there is never an even ratio of men to women. If the new guy or girl is cuter than the guy or girl they just spent the day before with, they are suddenly in a new relationship. It's like the whole of your twenties dating life condensed into three weeks. I have to say, being 50 never felt so good.

       Of course, this being a Bachelor franchise, there are rose ceremonies hosted by Chris Harrison. This is where paradise turns into hell for the ones who haven’t made a “connection” (i.e., they’re not as good looking as the person who just arrived). They are publicly told that no one wants them, and they are forced to leave Mexico immediately. You have to wonder how many women’s nightmares Chris Harrison shows up in. 

       The ones who are lucky enough to have found their soulmate based on the sheer fact that filming is coming to an end, get the delight of spending their last night in the fantasy suite. This is the show’s way of announcing that the couples will be having sex, which adds to the humiliation of the ones who get broken up with the next day. Because the final day is when they either break up or they get engaged. Because that's what the natural next step is, right? Nineteen days of making out on the beach and then a proposal or else we’re done. As one of the women put it, “If we don’t get engaged, we’re probably not going to make it.” Huh?

       The epiphanies continued the morning after the fantasy suite. One of the guys decided after getting matching tattoos of their combined names that maybe they should think things through a bit more. One woman said, “It was great having breakfast in bed together and finally being a normal couple.” Breakfast in bed is not a normal couple activity. Eating dry cereal for breakfast because the last of the milk is souring in his cereal bowl from the night before is more like it.

       Nonetheless, with Neil Lane handing out free diamond rings, three of the six couples got engaged. With such a solid foundation, I am certain they will make it to the alter and live happily ever after. The update confirmed it. After two whole months, all three were still going strong. As one of the guys said before he proposed, “I thought I knew what true love was in the past. But I didn’t. This is true love.” It’s kind of like what I say every time I start a new diet. “I thought the ones in the past would work out. But they didn’t. This one’s for real.”

       There was one guy who just couldn’t commit to the woman who declared her love for him. He had to break it off because he feels “too damaged to love anyone.” So what happened to him? They announced that he’s going to be the next Bachelor, of course! Why break just one woman’s heart when 28 more have signed up?


No comments:

Post a Comment