Des #4: Every Shade of Uncomfortable

Things that are uncomfortable:

• Private concerts
• Long silences at dinner
• Third-wheel, fourth-wheel...eleventh-wheel dates
• Haves descending from their helicopters to bestow "spontaneous" gifts on have-nots
• Involuntary tiny swimsuits
• Face-level hip-thrusts
• Poetry

Check, check, check...and we're done with week 4. After last week's unwieldy boatload of awesome material, I spent most of this week wondering when it was going to be over. But that's only one kind of uncomfortable. There are so many more:

Long silences discomfort: Des's first date was with Brad. I'm not sure who he is, and given the time he spent looking at a baby picture of himself, neither was he. Oh wait! That was his son. Single dads pimping their children are starting to blur for me. The rest of the men seemed to think this guy was all wrong for Des, and after enough uncomfortable silences at dinner, she agreed. No rose, no ride home. 

This is going nowhere discomfort: Fitting that this date had taken place in Atlantic City, the second-most shallow and fake place on earth, as Des, prompted by writers, stood atop the lighthouse where they had just had that boring dinner and said, "I'm looking for a love that can light the darkness." Thing is, I'm becoming convinced she's not. She really doesn't seem too into this whole thing. I think being the Bachelorette just sounded like fun. I missed an important shot from last week:

Yeah, that's what she's there for. I'm afraid this whole "journey" thing is going to get a lot less interesting--for her and for us--when there are fewer guys around. But how can I be critical? If I'm going to skewer the saps that think they're actually going to find love on a reality TV competition dating show, I can't criticize the ones who know they won't, right? The only problem is that Des is breaking her deal with me, to entertain me, if she's not earnest enough. I'm looking for stuff like Zak K at the opening cocktail party--to repeat, with no shirt and no sense of irony--saying he's totally serious about this. Mikey T saying some problems can't be solved with talking, that sometimes they have to get physical, right before taking Ben aside for a strongly worded conversation. Now that's earnest. That's entertaining.

Too many people on a date, forced to wear skimpy clothes they don't want to discomfort: Given that every group date is uncomfortable, and that amping up the discomfort is entirely expected, having a Mr. America competition motif--in Atlantic City--seemed fitting enough. There were a few golden moments: I was intrigued to see Juan Pablo, soccer player and Latin lover, demonstrating some skill with baton twirling. Sorry not to see the finished performance there. I did get a little thrill from seeing Mikey T say he's tired about being seen as a piece of meat--with a shirt but clearly no sense of irony--immediately take off his shirt and act like a piece of meat. The swimsuit competition, complete with a cringe-worthy hip-thrust dance number from Bryden, just made me sorry for all of them.

One sparkling little gem of gift dropped into this "date," however, was the shot of James "The Neck" back at the mansion, enjoying his evening of solitude while the other men are gone. In contrast to everything else about this show, he was comfortable, all right. But not as you might expect. Does he sprawl on the sofa in front of all the votives, savoring sole possession of the remote? Soak in the hot tub? Make a giant sandwich? Take a nap? No! Mr. "I Know How to Pamper Myself" takes a bubble bath. With...meatballs?

Performance art discomfort: During the social part of the "date" we Chris read his own poetry and Zak sang his own song. Okay, writing is narcissistic. No argument. PERFORMING what you've written (reciting/reading/singing), to people who did not seek you out to hear it, is unforgivable. You've taken away a person's right to bail out or skip to the end because it doesn't even cross your mind that a person might want to. I myself was recently trapped by unwanted poetry. There were three poems, I think. Or one poem with two long, applause-less breaks in the recitation. I tried to look attentive. I failed. Des, however, responded to it quite well and rewarded both the perpetrators with roses. People who love themselves understand each other, I guess.

Capitalizing on misfortune discomfort: The arc of uncomfortable-ness reached its pinnacle with the Red Cross-sponsored disaster-tourism date with James "The Neck" to view Hurricane Sandy's devastation of the Jersey shore. The helicopter gawker tour seemed uncomfortable enough, but then it was followed by a visit to a couple selected for their pitiable-ness from among--thousands? I kept wondering about what kind of process had been followed to identify this couple, how they must've been prepped for the Beautiful People to come, and how much gratitude they were supposed to show when they were given (totally spontaneously!) an evening they could Never Afford On Their Own for (what a coincidence!) their 35th anniversary. And I thought about how I'd feel in their shoes. And I squirmed.

Private concert discomfort: Nobody ever knows where to look in one of those situations, right? When an audience consists of eyes you can count, a performer can't just look out at the crowd. It's eye contact or nothing. And the people with those eyes feel like they're behaving badly if they're not looking right at the performer. How to make it worse? Let's watch OTHER people feel uncomfortable at a private concert. The good news is, though, that the performers are all for it. I'm tripping over Darius Rucker everywhere I turn the last couple of weeks, and his agent is only too happy to get him in front of an audience of millions by way of a foursome of embarrassed eyes. It's certainly a better gig than the musician on a Southwest flight from Burbank to Denver I was on a couple of months ago, singing into the P.A. under the "toilet occupied" sign. No lie.

My antennae did perk back up, though, when James decided, in the finest of Bachelor/ette tradition, to reveal dark truths about himself on a first date. The truth? He'd cheated on a long-term girlfriend, ending a five-year relationship with someone he thought he was going to marry. This happened during his freshman year of college. BACK UP! Either he took a few years off to find himself, tour Europe, and work on a crab boat, or that relationship started when he was THIRTEEN. So I guess he's been into having somebody pay attention to him for a while, now.

More performance art discomfort: Finally, at the cocktail "party" we were treated to the discomfort of more original composition. Zak finished the song he started during Mr. America, and a desperate Michael G. presented an acrostic poem, which apparently made everyone so uncomfortable that most of it didn't make it through edits. "Desiree" is a really long name for that sort of thing. But Des ate them both up.

"I don't belong here" discomfort: Bryden, in a great show of normalcy, revealed that he was uncomfortable. That first-date curse is unavoidable: peak too soon, get sidelined while other guys move into the center of attention, then feel all hurt for longer than everybody else. Or he was just embarrassed about the stripper show at the group date. Self-elimination made a lot of sense, but after much internal wrestling he decided to stick it out one more week, which meant somebody I can't remember went home instead, hurt and uncomfortable.

Phew! We're through the dread charity date week and can move on to more drama. Next week, Michael "Quote Machine" G. promises it's going to be "Armageddon," and we were teased that James and Ben are going to be exposed as frauds. More importantly, we're going to Munich and starting the Travel Channel portion of the season, which always makes me happy. And hopeful. To next week!