“I think he could be my husband?” There is something awkwardly unreal about watching hot women be rejected by hot men. The BachelorAU is about to start and while everything about it screams – go on, poke your own eyeballs out! – I can’t help but be secretly excited about the hot blonde who appears to lose her dignity in the promo. I think he could be my husband? Really? She’s read his profile and seen a photo and on the basis of a youtube video, she’s applied to be a wife on a format television show.
I have been speed dating, internet dating, met men in clubs, through friends, on holidays and just about everywhere else in between. None of them have worked out but they do at least exist. My friends whine about remembering who is who and nickname them accordingly. Nicknames normally based on locations or personality traits, both good and bad, and refer to them from time to time accordingly. To them it is irrespective if said man is a friend, potential boy or future husband. To them they all fit into the same category. Unless they are introduced to the circle of friends they simply become moments, nicknames and sometimes funny stories to talk about when we are pissed.
The moments of reminiscing about past men have grown fewer over the last year or so as the women in my life move on with their lives and start families of their own. Talk turns from strange bending penises to nappies, baby bath time and working husbands. From time to time they will indulge my latest man story and on most occasions, still laugh hysterically at my misfortunes and continued dating faux pas but their stories have become significantly different in genre. There are a few of us still lingering on the edges of singledom but lately personal understanding and empathy of the current dating climate and world has been hard to come by.
It is through the decreasing ranks in the numbers of single women that the few of us left have turned to such drastic measures as speed dating and internet dating. While it hasn’t worked for me, it has worked for people I know and you never know it could work for a few more of us yet. But now that I look at it, fundamentally, what’s the difference between that and The Bachelor?
Speed dating and internet dating are both individual events. While you are competing against other women, and in the case of speed dating, twenty other women, there are only two of you for five minutes while the rest wait in the wings for their turn to pounce. It’s a sport of course and should be treated as such, but the experience is most definatley not one shared. The Bachelor however plots twenty five women against each other, not only in the same space and continuously but leaves them all in the same house post and pre date AND puts them on televsion. There can be nothing personal about that but it will make some pretty special television viewing and allow the rest of us some respite from our own dating disasters. But best of all, it will all happen to people who are much better looking than me.
During first dates and early meetings the internal dialogue runs endlessly through my head. During the last first meeting of a man, I literally talked to myself for the entire duration. We met at the theatre and spent forty minutes chatting after, on the footpath out the front. The conversation was starting to lilt and the chat needed to move to either a bar/coffee shop or end completely. Coming out of my mouth after “What have you got on tomorrow?” Was the profound statement of “Well, it’s a school night…” During the awkward pause that followed, flowed my internal berrating dialogue that swore with rhetorical questions just like the flaky Nina on Offspring. What did you say that for? That was fucking stupid. You just told him you’d rather go home. Oh Fuck. What am I supposed to say now? How the hell do I back peddle that? He smiled, nodded and followed up with a “It was lovely to meet you, I’m so glad that you were here tonight,” or some other such chat. I smiled, backed away and headed to the car still spooling the internal profanities over yet another opportunity I just couldn’t seem to crack.
So until I learn how to follow through with the real men I meet, I will watch the Bachelor and I will laugh. I will complete thirty seconds of self loathing while I watch but I am living strong that my love life has not become so desperate that I’ve applied to put my dating life on TV. I am going to watch the ridiculously good looking people fawn, backstab, bitch, grope and talk endlessly about a man they’ve never met. I am going to love watching their condescending tones and smites bounce and rebound off their shiny, artificially whitened teeth. I am going to love the one liners and I am going to laugh about it with my friends, single or not. You just never know, I may even learn something. Maybe I can use them in the real world and see if that can stop the crazy, internal monologue that plays in my own head.
Episode one and these are already my favourites. Such smart women. Such role models. Such dating advice.
“I’m single because I just date dickheads.”
“I’m a professional skate boarder”
“I’m glad I get to make the first first impression.”
“That’s not a compliment, 19’s very immature. Poor girl.”
Go on ladies. Single or not. Lap this shit up. It can’t happen in the real world, the dating gods just wouldn’t allow it. Long live The Bachelor! And just quietly, Tim’s pretty good looking. Shoes, teeth and job even.
life in big frilly knickers 