The human condition

People are, by nature, just a bunch of exhibitionists. Chuck Barris was smart enough to realize this when he created the poppy 1970s Dating Game, still viewable on TVLand for those who care. This is just one element of humanity- be heard, be seen and you are in the scene. 

From there, Dating game shows and just shows in general spawned freakishly like lemmings  or Catholic families or Fro-Yo chains on the west coast. They fell into varied genres, of course. There was Singled Out, where the main attraction was probably Jenny McCartney's boobs as no one remembers the male hosts and because every episode was basically the same. Singled out, though, was pretty tame, in comparison to the raunch-fests known as Blind Date, Elimi-date and the 5th Wheel- which occasionally delighted us with some bisexual fun. These shows were great, not only because they were straight up cracker, but because they were untouchably cruel. It was a given that it was acceptable to justify dumping a girl for her muffin top.  Along these lines was also Dismissed, where one lucky dude/lady was delighted with a van full of angsty suitors who sat eagerly checking one another out and picking on one anothers' hoochie skirts or those who forgot to bulk up on their daily dose o' roids. There was a financial incentive to this show and, the really smart winners who had the choice of a 2nd date with the leading man/lady, would take the cash and run. I mean, it was usually only 100 bucks, but, probably one of the more entertaining ways to simultaneously earn money and singe someone else's self esteem. 

Meanwhile, there was a more dignified breed of dating shows forming where legit people placed themselves on the auctioning block all for the glory of at least 5 minutes of love. This began in the early 90s when Darva Conger fell in love in about a 3 hour time span with... God, i don't even remember the guy but he was a millionaire. At The end of Who Wants to Marry a Millionaire, Fox played that horrible Savage Garden song that goes "I knew I loved you before I met you" as she sobbed in his arms while they spun around on a stage. I think it lasted a week. 

But who says you can't find love on TV? Trista and Ryan did on the Bachelorette,  one of  the original dating serials (though Trista did have to endure all of the pain and torture of ABC's premiere of The Bachelor in order to rule the roost on her own spot. Lucky for her that she was cute and ABC wanted her back.). Ryan won Trista over with his fire-fighter's body, his sensitive elementary school poetry and his cute little paintings of a snowy white tiger (why I remember this is not clear to me; its amazing the amount of garbage i have floating around in my brain). They are still married and have a brethren of their own. 

Other spin-offs of the Bachelor ensued, as well as celebrity dating serials that really and truly are the love children of sweet sagas like Trista and Ryan and the Fifth Wheel. The more washed up the celebrity, the better the show. Er, scratch that, I actually prefer the spin offs where the-girl-who-was-supposed-to-end -up-wiht-a-d-lister gets her own spot, ie. I Love New York and Daisy of Love. 

With all these serials and spin offs of spin offs chasing each other around on cable, ABC decided to bring it back Old School with a return to the one hit wonder single episodes instead of these hormonal sagas. 

The name of the new game is Dating In the Dark. The premise? Simple. Find six people who have been unlucky in love. Stack each episode with a garden variety of not-so-relationship-savvy singles- a dash of the mentally off canter, a smattering of self professed narcisists, one or two with extremely low self esteem. Make sure at least 1/3 are fairly physically unattractive and that roughly half are ok, and toss in an 8 just for good measure. See, very scientific, very simple. Then pair them up using those intricate formulas they use on match.com but here is the catch- they can't see each other. Its like meeting people in chatrooms. Scary, right? Well it gets worse- when the matches meet in real life they meet in the dark. A kind of dark where you can't see anything, have absolutely no idea what the person looks like when you leave the room. Blind as bats. Now, you may be thinking to yourself that you, too, have dated in the dark. You may be pretty sure that its called a blackout. But this is different- it's special, it's sincere, and it's basically sober (with the exception of a few flutes of champagne, though, i am willing to bet there are jiggers of vodka behind the set). These people are going out of their comfort zone to meet with and perhaps build an intimate bond with someone who the producers says is compatible. They are risking it all. They are risking the fact that this person, potentially a soul mate, is, in fact, utterly busted. 

And so, on Monday night brought me into the world of 6 people anxiously anticipating meeting 'The one' on basic cable in the dark. Within the course of an hour, the three couples meet with one another on several dates in hopes that by the 3rd date they might get to accompany one another in the light of day amongst the general human population. Because I started watching the show a bit late, I turned it on to witness Gina and Matt groping for one another in pitch black like 18 year olds at a frat party. They were engaged in some self effacing banter, in which matt, he's the token low self esteem male, makes some comment about his physical appearance. Now Gina, a rather portly Italian looking girl, giggles and queries, "Do you really think you are not attractive?" I sense nervousness in her laugh. I mean, i would be concerned, too. 

Gina returns to the kitchen where the other girls wait and gushes about both the great connection she has with matt and her concerns that he is a total ug-o. Deanna, a midwestern-looking blonde girl who has been paired with a squirrely guy named jeff who is past his days of hot, is also squealing with sheer joy.  Meanwhile, the token 8, a red head named Renee, professes that she wishes she could let her wall down, but she can't so she can't make a connection on the show. About 10 minutes later, she rejoins Jose, a token Ryan type who is a former marine turned music teacher,  in the dark room with a flute of champagne and probably a lot of vodka and starts spilling about her trust and relationship issues. She lets down her wall. As part of letting down her wall, Renee brings a glass jar of shells and places it between Joses legs, basically in his crotch. Then she starts talking about how the jar is symbolic of special times with her dad. Girl's got problems. Up to this point I had thought Renee was just being civilly cautious. Then I realized she has always wanted to play that broken Holly GoLightly-type that really just wants to be loved. Renee seriously disappointed me. And she is no Trista.

During the commercial break i noticed three commercials: one for home depot (subliminal message: build a life with someone), Love Happens, a movie staring Jennifer Aniston as a woman who is unlucky in love (she just plays herself), and one for Applebees Specials (perfect cheap date). 

Cut to the final scene: The couples reveal themselves and decided if these blacked out trysts will carry on to part II: Dating in Public. This is a very big next step. As Gina waits for Matt to be revealed, with whom, mind you, she played tonsil hockey in the dark just hours ago, she chants, "Please be hot, please be hot". Her face falls when she sees him: "Uh, this guy looks like he' 40- Could I see him on top of me, I don't know." Needless to say, she does not meet him on the balcony. Matt is still a virgin.

Fast forward to Renee and Jose. During the physical unveiling, both are beaming and clearly attracted to one another. As a viewer, i am so convinced that crazy red will meet him on the porch. She did put seashells in his crotch. Unfortunately, she has spazz attack and gives no clear reason for why she will not meet him. I guess the wall is up and sea shells are not for Jose. Jose walks away broken hearted, lamenting that he is used to this and though this show has hurt him, it will only make him stronger. Jose might want to stop dating lunatics for long term results. 

The 3rd couple, Jeff and Deanna, close out the episode. Deanna, for some strange reason, really likes Jeff in the dark and is very attracted to him the light. Jeff, contrarily, has a hell of a time deciding whether he can meet Deanna on the porch. He's such a whiner- " uh, I don't know if i can get past the physical attractiveness" he gripes about Deanna, but then comments on how great she is. "She doesn't look as much like I thought she did," he moans. This is possibly my favorite line in the episode. No comment necessary. 

After so much ado about nothing, Jeff decides to meet Deanna on the porch. They drive off in a Chrysler Touring into the light of day. The end. 

After watching them drive away ( i mean, it may have been a Cadillac, but i am pretty sure it was a Chrysler), I have to wonder: Did Jeff settle for less? Or,  did Jeff finally look in a mirror and realize it is time to shed his Dorian Gray complex?

I also have to wonder if this is not the most cruel of all shows. The others- dismissed, elimidate, singled out and even the bachelor- emphasize the exterior as the first factor for compatibility. Here, these people feel a true 'connection' but, upon  seeing things clearly, are ready to drop that person like its hot. 

I speak truthfully, though,when I say that Dating in the Dark has a lot to offer: The awkward cruelty of middle school, a reminder that some of us are just hopeless, and, most importantly, it really is all about pheromones. 

The Top 100 Things that Amuse me Mildly: #98- shark week...

"The Leopard cannot change its spots. Nor the tiger its stripes. Maybe we can change the way we see it"

It is very rare that in modern television and documentary that one can find such powerful and incredibly insightful rhetoric. Nor is it possible to find a program so rich in personal connections and adeptly aligned, in a figurative sense at least, to daily life. For this reason, I adore Shark Week. 

The plot structure of shark week program is so engaging and heart wrenching. It has all of the drama and heartache of Shakespeare and Tolstoy, along with the perversion of Nabokov and the glittery grit of Palchiuk.  Shark Bite Summer and a Tale of Two Tiger Sharks ( i may have made up that title but i think it is oh so fitting), are two of my recent finds. Even the titles make for so much anticipation on the part of viewers. 

Now I am for the most part not an extremely emotionally sappy person. However, as I watched a man recall in agony about the time he almost lost his 14 pound terrier to a shark i was almost moved to tears, kind of like the time i watched the christian the lion video which portrays lions reunited with their rescuers after 20 years of separation. You would cry to if you saw 200 pound lions docilely reuniting with british people while whitney bellows, "anddddd I-eee-Ieee I will alwayssss lovvvvee yooouuouou".  It was almost as heartwrenching to hear the terrier's owner recount the lessons he learned, "I will never let that little dog get so close to water again." I wonder i the story would have been different if the Terrier had been a Great Dane. 

While Shark week has led me to sympathize with other human beings, it has also made me realize that I, too, have endured the trauma of a shark attack. Though, of course, my shark attacks have all occured on dry land. I have pulled a few examples of where shark attack rhetoric is certainly applicable to shark attacks on dry land, most specifically in ultra lounges and clubs. 

On Shark Bite Summer one victim recounts ever so profoundly "i felt something chewing on my leg, i turned around and saw this huge... dorsal fin." Now, in terms of bar speak, this could readily be translated into an incident of a total guido grinding up on you without consent or awareness underneath flashing lights and pulsing beats. However, as it does take two to tango, shark experts with prententious british accents warn, "its the risk you took going into their environment". This holds true for the club, too. You made the choice to wear that hoochie skirt so you better know how to deal with that dorsal fin. This is because, at the end of the day, sharks and bar guido sharks mistaken your movements for  "the kind of splashing sharks always confuse with prey in distress". Bottom line? Don't be vulnerable, don't be stupid and know your territory... as well as theirs.

Just a little food for thought. 

The Top 100 Things that Amuse me Mildly: #99- the word 'dabble'

The word 'dabble' is perhaps the most ubiquitous member of my daily verbal lexicon. Now, this is primarily because it is actually a very vague word. To dabble, as defined by webster-merriam dictionary entails the following: 

Main Entry:

dab·ble 

Pronunciation:

\ˈda-bəl\

Function:

verb

Inflected Form(s):

dab·bled; dab·bling  \-b(ə-)liŋ\

Etymology:

perhaps frequentative of ²dab

Date:

1557

intransitive verb1 a: to paddle, splash, or play in or as if in water b: to reach with the bill to the bottom of shallow water in order to obtain food2: to work or involve oneself superficially or intermittently especially in a secondary activity or interest <dabbles in art>

Now, lets look at definition number 1 which describes some sort of water play. The part that gets me is to play as if in water. I am pretty sure that there are many activities that people engage in on dry land that mirror movements that very well happen in water as well. For instance, I might use the inflected forms dabble to solicit information from one of my girlfriends about her late night activities:

example: Me: "who were you dabbling with last night? It sure sounded like a lot of fun."

               Friend: "Yeah, it was a good dabble. I have never dabbled so much in my life- wow i am sore!"

Notice here that, again, verb usage is vague- dabble could still be referring to multiple activities, like yoga, chess, twister, or even late night swimming. What did you think i was referring to? Oh, get your mind out of the gutter. 

Notice also that dabble is more than merely an intransitive verb. It can be used in its inflected forms and can also transform into a noun. Dabble as a noun can also shift into "dabbler" as it can easily be used to refer to a person. 

Definition #2, refers to superficial involvement in a secondary interest or activity. For many people, this means going to work. So, instead of saying, "i am working until 6" most should say "I am dabbling at the office until 6". For most Americans, work gets in the way of more important things like: checking your personal email every 5 minutes, g chatting your college roommates who live across the country, flir-texting with the guy you met at the bar last weekend, going to the gym, online shopping and sleeping. Think about how much more of these things you could get done everyday if you did not have to go dabble at the office everyday. 

I feel like definition #2 could also be used when describing  relationships. I feel like it would take a lot of pressure off of both parties involved if it were as easy as "oh yeah, I am dabbling with this guy. Eh, we've been dabbling for a few months, no big deal." Given that this is such a casual term, I feel like there would be much less drama once those two parties are no longer engaged in regular dabble. Instead of using such stigmatized rhetoric as "omg, he dumped me" or "we broke up", which are such violent words to begin with, it would be much more casual just to say "we're not really dabbling anymore".  I think this change in common rhetoric would certainly result in less wrath between exs and naturally less keyed driver doors, baseball bats busting windows, and drunken, rage filled phone calls/texts/ notes in car doors. This is also a valuable word to use when you don't want to admit you are dating someone. It helps maintain your sense of dignity. 

Clearly, these are only a few ways that dabble is a crucial word in modern diction and, in my opinion, should be used more often. It's true, more dabbling will make for a better world.