Will You Accept This Coffin?

Before I watched The Bachelorette on ABC last night, I watched Jeopardy and Wheel of Fortune. I was struck by the blatant flirting on these earlier shows. As the hosts asked each contestant to tell the audience a little about him/herself, the player then coyly joshed around with Alex or Pat in a very (and surpisingly) sexual way. No matter the gender of the contestant, he/she would try to appear as interesting and attractive to the host as possible-- there was rampant giggling, hair flipping, eye twinkling, playful teasing, eyebrow raising, etc. All of these behaviors were on display to such a ridiculous extent that I wondered when Vanna was going to break out of her in-between puzzles coma to grab a hose or condom.

The obvious explanation for this flirting is that on set, the host is master, and in the fixed world that he reigns over each weekday, he is the most desirable personality. Contestants can't help but want to woo the man they've watched on television for years and years, the man who might be sending them home with cash or a Corvette. This is like when you are talking with a friend and that friend says, "If so-and-so was the last man on earth, would you do him and have his babies?" Well, when you're on Jeopardy, Alex Trebek is the last man on earth. I'm sure that before they go on the show, contestants fantasize about being the most memorable guest that Alex/Pat has ever come across. I can see the blazing need in each player's eyes for the host to notice that he/she is the most spectacular commoner that has ever graced his stage, and so these players become incredibly dorky, like sixth graders trying to work up the nerve to ask the hottest kid in school to the dance. Basically, for a half hour, all these people want is to be loved and adored by crusty ABC staples.

I used to just assume that this same thing was going down on The Bachelor and Bachelorette shows, because how else to explain how a large group of contestants could all be drawn to the one giving out roses? In all my twenty-four years, I have not found more than ten people interesting enough to develop romantic interest in. On top of that, I estimate that at least a third of these guys were found lacking upon closer examination. For instance, my assistant manager at Sam Goody seemed incredibly alluring and hot when he used a CD opener-razor to slit open the skin on the side of his forefingers, wipe that blood across his cheeks like war paint, and then get up on the register counter and dance, but after I spent a few months with him I had to end our affair by calling him one afternoon and saying, "Uhhhh, I don't think I'm coming over ever again." And then immediately hanging up the phone. Point being, it's tough to find people in this world that don't make you nauseous because you sense that you operate on slightly, yet significantly different levels. Or at least I do.

So it especially blows my mind that some producers find thirty something guys, throw them in a room with a bachelorette, and feel confident that she's even going to like one of those contestants. Or even that any of them are going to like her. Chris Harrison, host, makes a point of reiterating that Meredith is choosing from "some of the most eligible bachelors in the country!", but this means absolutely nothing. Even if these producers are matching these guys to physical and personality traits that Meredith claims to like, it is the indescribable attributes, the qualities that fall between the cracks of language, that (in my experience) are what truly create interest. I mean, I claim to like "funny" and "quirky looking," but this doesn't mean that I'm waiting for Carrot Top. And it is my belief that unless your standards are very low or unless you are very simple and uninteresting yourself, you should really be genuinely compatible with very few people. We are complex machines. Not everyone is meant to be friends with us, and even less are capable of being lovers.

This is why Meredith's decision to go against established Bachelorette rules and give out seven roses instead of six last week killed me. Out of an initial group of thirty, that girl should be lucky if she's inescapably drawn to one of the bunch, but I'll give her three. I believe that she should at least know herself well enough to have a top three. This lack of natural romantic inclination really puzzled me last week, and I wrote off this season-after-season "I'm attracted to EVERYBODY!" phenomenon as a cousin of the Wheel of Fortune/Jeopardy love trap. But a bunch of guys getting stuck in a mansion with one girl, then becoming Patty from Arkansas trying to catch Trebek's eye, only explains one half the equation. Meredith is Trebek, so what's she doing fucking around with the plebs?

Although it is only the tip of the iceberg, I believe that the attraction experienced during The Bachelorette swirls around death. Moreso than ever before, too, since Meredith is the poster girl for the Grim Reaper, her nana having famously passed away before the big date with big giggler, Bob. Over and over again, Meredith reiterates that she is looking for someone to spend her life with-- in a word (a word that always makes me gag), a "mate." This need to "spend a life" with someone always carries with it the smelly taint of death, and the air around Meredith is no exception. Instead of stating that she is looking for someone she can't live without, she's instead looking for someone to accompany her on the path toward her grave. In every interview where she talks about the "journey" ahead of her and her unknown "mate," I can't help but hear the unspoken implication that she is looking for someone to shut down with. And once that it is on the table, it seems to become intoxicating to the elegible bachelors.

Once this death anxiety is released freely in the mansion, everybody is able, for (it appears) the first time in their lives to behave as though they are dying. Every single guy says that his date with Meredith has been THE BEST date in his life, not because of the exotic locations arranged by the producers or Mederith's spectacular je ne sais quois, but because the conversations on these outings are like last will and testaments. I get the sense that normally, the people who go on this show engage in vast, vast amounts of small talk with their dates, that romantic excursions are polite and dry and filled with much hiding, especially of their personal fears. But because fear propels The Bachelorette, finally the guys are able to let it guide them, too, and they unload with urgency all the things they'd want to say if they were going to die (not receive a rose) tomorrow. It astounds me how freeing this situation is for the contestants. Instantly they are describing Meredith as "amazing!" solely because she is willing to talk with them about their mortal needs and desires instead of good restaurants in town or the shitty weather. And while these conversations are filled with platitudes and seem pretty ordinary on the surface, look at the exhiliration that surfaces in the post-date interviews, the guys reacting to the opening of the life/death floodgates like they have just reached god.

I especially loved it when bachelor Ian found Bachelorette Meredith amazing because he was able to tell her about the death of his mother when he was a toddler and she didn't run screaming out of the limo. I don't know who this guy has been hanging around with all his life, but for him to be stupefied by the kindness of a woman giving him doleful eyes and assuring nods in response to his tragedy is extremely sad. But then again, Meredith showed the exact same astonishment when Bachelor Bob possessed the superheroish quality of being able to nod and say, "Oh, I'm so sorry," when Meredith's gamma left this world, so I guess that the population is much crueler and abrupt than I realize. Maybe I have just been fortunate to have been surrounded with people who don't quake at the mention of death, but then why haven't I been more fortunate to meet more people that I can stand for more than two days?

I feel like if The Bachelorette producers sent Meredith on a date to a morgue with one of the contestants and they had that "bonding experience" together, death-date guy would be the final one standing, without a doubt. Meredith and her bachelor would clutch each other tight, finding in each other qualities that are "just enough" to get them through until they croak. But at the time, those qualities ("realness," "niceness," "caringness") will seem like everything, like all one could need in this life.

Comments

[geoff]

re: paragraph four - tonight, as I watched Traci Bingham smoosh her breasts all over Ron Jeremy on "The Surreal World," I thought to myself - Stockholm syndrome? Admittedly, a much different dynamic than "Bachelorette," but still. (One could argue she was just drunk, what about Trishelle confessing her love for Ice in the preview for next week?)

I really feel for Ron. You'd think laying a thousand plus girls would inoculate you against every strain of Jewish self-doubt, but maybe not.

[Laurel]

What a fantastic post. I'm a recent regular reader of your blog and I really enjoy it. Looking forward to reading your book.

[taryn]

how lenny made into that 10 to begin with will continue to astound me for years to come