Des #10: The Long Goodbye

A little context: I watched this week's show in the morning. Full, straight, beautiful summer morning sitting in front of the TV watching a reality romance show. In my nightgown. Not jammies, mind you, which are cute and say "sexy baby." No, a nightgown, which says "Do you need some soup?" Over yoga pants. With milk dribbles on my chin. Surely the fantasy suite dates are meant to allow a beautiful young couple to experience the morning realities and find the confidence to say "Yes, I can do that!" Don't you agree?

I have a valid excuse for the morning TV-watching and dire dress. I have spent the last four months reducing a home and thirty years of family life to this:

There's a reason people don't follow through with that lovely, hazy idea of "simplifying." It's bone-breakingly hard. Take a minute to look around your house and think, "Every item I see is a decision. Every item is something to handle and put somewhere else." Box? Shelf? Give away? Throw away? I'm lucky enough to have a basement to store everything I do decide to keep while we rent out the house and I join my husband who's working in Saudi Arabia, but no one would put as many reps into a stairclimber as I have into those stairs. Monday I finally finished, shoved the last random but necessary loose item into the car, and became homeless for the next three weeks. (I hope. Visa permitting.) I drove nine hours to my daughter's house and collapsed at midnight. Then went to sleep smiling at the prospect of sitting on the sofa with the milk dribbles and the chicken soup nightgown and daytime television. So in the interest of full disclosure, perhaps I'm not in the best place today to feel like The Dilemma of Desiree is that big of a deal.

(I'm also in a poor place to pour a lot of energy into getting and pasting pictures. Sorry.)

And after all the promos, all the hype, all the promises that this was like NO SEASON EVER BEFORE, what is there, really, to talk about? Despite being told at the beginning that we were about to embark on "the television event of the summer," I found the whole thing pretty slow. Kudos to producers on encouraging Des to wear the blue top with the loose waistline that would flutter picturesquely in the breeze while she cried at the end of the dock over the turquoise Antigua water. And in telling her to go there for her cry, rather than into her pillow in the dark.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. Des went through the motions (all the motions, as far as I could see) with the other two men, enjoying a drive-to-the-beach vacation day with Drew, then a helicopter date with Chris, both of which ended in invitations to the fantasy suite. Of course, Des got captured on tape at the beginning of the show talking about heading for her "fairytale ending," which is basically the same as somebody saying "I don't see how anything could ruin this date." WARNING to future contestants: If producers are egging you into saying how great you think things are going to turn out, be assured they know something you don't know. Let's remember that they have already accompanied Brooks to Boise for his cold-feet conversation with his mother and sister. They know full well that trouble's a-comin'. And you can be sure those same producers high-fived each other when they got Des to actually say "fairytale ending."

Because yes, between the airing of the other two dates, we got to see that producers arranged for and accompanied Brooks on a trip from Salt Lake to Boise to meet his mother and sister and talk through his doubts. I did love the clarity with which he realized that "the idea of proposing at the end of this makes me uncomfortable." This is actually a sane reaction. It does seem that Brooks is being sold as a terrible guy, because surely no one could fail to love Des, but come on. I'm a little puzzled by his sister confirming his concerns by telling him that "At this point you should know." At what point does she think he is? He's spent private time with this woman...four times? All artificial, all chaperoned by a camera crew. Why can't he just say "I'd like to keep dating her because she seems like a fun girl so far"? Wait--no. Mustn't break the illusion that these dates are Serious and Very Important.

We get a nice snapshot, here, though, of what leads one person into staying with a different wrong person: the idea of breaking up is just too hard. I remember seeing a book author talking about rough starts to marriage, and citing some stunning statistic about the percentage of people married to someone they couldn't bring themselves to break up with. I get it. Most people struggle with short-term pain for long-term gain. I certainly do. My husband, on the other hand, will pour salt on a canker sore, break open a blister, drain an infection. Of course, he never had to do a breakup like this because--ta-da!--he wound up with me, complete with milk dribble and chicken soup nightgown. Lucky man. So after the one stumble, the sister gets it right, advising him that through all the pain and difficulty of a breakup he needs to keep his singular focus on "what's best for her, what's best for you." Drain that wound, buddy. Do it quick.

Unfortunately for us, "do it quick" is where the show failed. The breakup conversation was messy and took a long time, the way real ones do, but I wanted a television breakup. Quick and dramatic. Get out those editing scissors. Instead, we got lots of labored apologies and repetitions about how great Des was and how Brooks wished he could feel more. She, in fact, is better than he is, which she pshaws, but that doesn't seem to convince him to change his mind. ("Wait, you're not better than I am? You're just normal? Well, great then!") My son-in-law Kory, with the wisdom of dudes, identified the tone of the breakup: He's saying all the right things to build her up and make it about some missing magic because he knows he needs to date her friends, which is Des's case is the entire female population of the United States. So be careful how you go about this.

(I hope you noticed that although Brooks felt sure enough about his decision to end the relationship that he didn't want to go on the date, he felt UNSURE enough that he DID need to accept the trip to Antigua. I'm just sayin'.)

Cue a good dock-cry. Brooks, it seems, is the one who has her heart, which is now broken. And we still have TWO HOURS to fill next week. I'm not optimistic, either for Des's prospects or for my desire for high entertainment. I saw an onscreen tweet along the lines that Brooks is Des's Harvard, Drew a solid Ivy-League school, and Chris is her safety school. Does she take one of the backups, or decide to skip school altogether and go join the Peace Corps and stop shaving her legs for a couple of years? And what, oh what, will happen with the visit with her family? Will they encourage her to oh, just pick one and be done with it? Will her brother call up a posse and hunt down Brooks? Hmm. Perhaps there are some possibilities here after all. I'll have my nightgown laid out and ready.

Des #9: Revenge of the Dirks ("The Men Tell All")

Remember that magical first night, so very few weeks ago, that cage-match of testosterone-and-alcohol-fueled gallantry known as the opening cocktail party? Our first encounter with Zak "No pants no shirt no problem"? And Ben, just one feathered hat away from a full-scale pimp for his son? Brandon and his "life-changing feelings"? Diogo one-upping him with "an explosion of love and feelings"? And who could forget Jonathan and his very large love tank?

Well, maybe everyone could forget a lot of that because the most consistent thing I heard people say that week was that NONE of us could keep these men straight. By the second week, they were all Dirk to me. Love tank Dirk, bare-chest dirk, five-o'clock-shadow Dirk, even bigger neck Dirk. It seemed clear that Des had a type, and it had a lot to do with hair gel, an even spray tan, and a huge neck. But now that we're down to three, they're the three least-Dirky guys of the bunch. But this week, in a festival known as "The Men Tell All," the Dirks are back. Ah, I've missed them. 

But wait! There's more! I've missed the real show all these seasons, distracted by the shallow entertainment of watching contestants tear open each others' old wounds. This week I learned that the REAL show is in the audience, where, according to Chris Harrison, the crowd is made up of "those representing Bachelor nation." 

Oh.

Well, gosh, that changes everything. So, ladies and gentlemen, I present to you your unelected delegates to the Next Bachelor Nominating Convention:  

They're attentive and engaged, which should make us confident about the way they're representing us. However, I am a little concerned about the one at the lower right, immediately under my pause icon. She doesn't look as if she's completely gittin' it. The one in the center of the same lower row, as well, seems confused. Wild card voters.

Note the dress code. No displays of partisanship. So instead of buttons and funny hats, these delegates are asked to wear solid colors, open at the chest and neck. Tank tops if you've got the arms to carry it off. If not, be advised you will not be seated on the aisle.

Of course, a few rule-breakers always manage to sneak in:

And rogue cameramen always manage to find them. It increases the dramatic, anything-could-happen tension.

Candidates for Next Bachelor are interviewed, offering opportunities to make a few introductory remarks. As with presidential races, there are a good number of just-happy-to-be-there candidates, no-shots or long-shots at best. But bless them, they keep trudging along, sniping at the front-runners and grinning through their closing moments of fame. Among them, Fantasy Suite Dirk did the best job of entertaining from the fringes, absorbing graciously all offered shock and horror at the creeper behavior that got him sent home before last call at the opening cocktail party.

Between them and the ones at center stage are the mid-rank candidates who have no realistic shot but do still have a lot of name recognition. This would be where you find your Kasey (high-voice Dirk), your Mikey T (five-o'clock-shadow Dirk), your James (biggest-neck Dirk), your Juan Pablo (not Dirk). But wait! The world has gone mad! There's a mighty Juan Pablo movement afoot, though we've never seen a Next Bachelor from the mid-ranks, actual discussion about James and Mikey T., and a final three who might all be fatally damaged. This could be a very interesting convention!

Granny's certainly puzzled, I'll say that much.

Juan Pablo pulled off the best move of the night, simultaneously elevating himself while cutting down somebody else. Asked about James, he said that he liked him, but to be honest, "My daughter or my sister, I would not want to date James right now. If he becomes the good James, I'm happy with it, but right now, not my daughter, not my sister." Though Chris asked James very directly about whether he'd consider being the Bachelor, the delegates gave him a sound rejection. And a lot of shocked faces:

 

That last one might've been more of a coulda-told-you face. Yes, the delegates were in agreement: No matter how many times James retold the story of what was REALLY happening in that back-of-limo, what-happens-next conversation, and no matter whether he told it BETTER this time than any of the four or five other, also different times, no. Just, no. Our delegates will never consent to seeing James as the next Bachelor. Phew.

Juan Pablo, I must admit, acquitted himself very well. Noble family man (no time to date when he's a father), good father (as in, ahem, actually talking to his daughter and about her while in the mansion, unlike the also-booed Ben), athlete (Des: "Soccer players have the best butts), clever and in possession of solid values (for evidence of both, refer to previous quote)...we got more out of him than we did in the whole show. This may be the fan fave.

And then we come to my fave, Zak. I tend to go for dark horses. I gave him a five-smiley high-entertainment-value rating in the first show. (For complete ratings click here.) And he has delivered. But doggone it, he's turned out to have substance! This was a genuinely devastated guy, who went into this game with his heart wide open because that's how he does everything, and who suffered for it. This is a guy with bachelor's degrees in BOTH psychology and English, a graduate degree in humanities, and a job as a...fluid drilling engineer? After being subjected to so much labored verse through this season, the poem he wrote in invisible ink in the back of his gift to Des turned out to be GOOD. And then his song? Ack! Good again! Sitting there with my heart of stone and my inappropriate sense of humor, I was having feelings! Somebody find this guy a good woman.

And that's where we'll have to leave it for now. I am in the process of moving to Saudi Arabia, and spent today chasing around on visa business rather than writing. Saudis love official stamps, and it took most of my day to find someone, ANYONE willing to put some sort of stamp on my medical report that the Saudis would accept as certification that my doctor is a doctor. Will Bachelor Nation move more efficiently than the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia? Well, by the end of next month, I should be in country. But the next Bachelor? Mmmm...could take longer. And you don't get to vote. Bachelor Nation isn't a democracy, you know. More of a--oh. Kingdom. Good grief. They're even more similar than I thought.

P.S. I'll be blogging about the Arabian adventure. Foreign-girl.blogspot.com. Nothing much to say yet, but it'll start filling in soon enough.

Des #8: You Can Never Go Home Again

I try to imagine how I would feel, the parent of a Bachelorette contestant, on the day of the dread hometown visit, cleaning my house, getting ready for a TV crew to appear and record how I handle being introduced to a stranger I understand my son will tell me he's madly in love with. I try to consider the way I've already written off said son, so cute that little girls in fifth grade started calling the house and turning his head before middle school, the drawers full of hair product, all that walking around the house shirtless, the better to check himself out in any mirror or window he happened to pass. I spawned a tool, I would sadly tell myself as I basted a chicken everyone would converse over but no one would eat. And then Do these pants make me look fat on TV?

My favorite hometown visit was to the family of last season's "winner," Catherine. Their nonchalance delighted me. You're bringing home a boy? Oh. Whatever. Our daughter goes through boys like potato chips. You want our blessing? I guess, if that means something to you. Hand me a towel.

These brilliant people understood the seriousness of The Bachelor. They understood their daughter had gone on a lark, was still on it, and if things were really serious, they'd prove themselves in time just fine. No worries. Sean and Catherine, however, were mortally offended that they weren't taken seriously enough. Well, nobody made that mistake this time. These well rehearsed families had picked up the importance of a hearty welcome.

To be fair, Des is made for these kinds of settings. She's a master of light conversation, a properly timed tender pout, and ready laughter. She will always make a good first impression. Perhaps she elevated those skills in a desperate attempt to cover for her unfiltered brother:

Oh wait! My mistake. THIS guy:

Yes, that's it. Surely you understand the confusion. The Bluths were always trying to cover up for Buster, too. Though I must say Buster is doing a better job of being neither seen nor heard. (I apologize for the cross-show reference. Impossible to resist.)

ANYWAY, the visits themselves were way less entertaining than I wanted, but for Zak's. Thank you, Zak, for being my reliably sparkling little elf of delight. If Zak's on camera, I'm gonna be smiling for one reason or another. His doom was expected before the show started, and inevitable when he pulled up in the sno-cone truck.

Oops! I did it again. Here you go:

Again, surely you must see the reason for the confusion. It's a utility vehicle forced into family service, embarrassing a man wanting to be taken seriously as a romantic prospect. But wait! Zak isn't embarrassed in the slightest. And there's your problem. Zak was doomed early on as the super-fun guy you like to be around but don't necessarily love. And he never got it. I'd say there's a decent chance that if he'd shown up in an Audi things might've turned out differently. But no, he chose to do his wooing this way:

Women appreciate a man who opens the door for them. But when the hand holding that door is clad in fuzzy penguin-paw mittens and the other hand is holding a penguin head...maybe not quite what she pictured in her Sir Galahad.

Plus, his family holds their forks weird:

Sort of a bird claw grip. Maybe that comes from too much wearing of penguin paws.

All that said, I love this family. They love each other in a way that gives them their own sugar-fueled rhythm and language, and are just so gleefully uninhibited together. Zak is a lucky guy. I hope he remembers that.

From there, everybody else kinda bored me. I think Drew gets younger every time I see him. And stiffer. The collision between goofy reality TV and a genuinely complex family situation was difficult, and I have to credit them with comporting themselves with extraordinary grace.

Chris, at least, gave me this:

No, we're not looking at a medical emergency. This is a heart-to-heart, father-and-son conversation had over mucus, which is apparently common for them. This is how they bond. Fishing? Nope. Baseball? Nope. Nasal adjustments, hanging out in the basement, just a couple of dudes, opening their hearts and sinus cavities to each other. This perhaps explains something, though: The perpetrator of unsolicited poetry comes from the perpetrator of unsolicited spinal adjustments. I mean, seriously, who says, to a first-time visitor in his home "You want me to give you a medical procedure?" Well, Chris's dad, for one. Thank goodness he's only a chiropractor is all I have to say. It could've been worse. And less televisable.

Brooks...uh...nothing. I'm getting his appeal more now, but nothing happened for the benefit of my entertainment. All effort now seems to be directed to setting us up for Des's heartbreak over him. Lengthy interviews with Chris Harrison in which she clearly says he's the one. Lots of excerpts of him talking about his doubts. And, most tellingly, the Men Tell All episode scheduled for this next week, while there are still THREE men in the running. Thus...we must not get down to two, but will see the whole thing blow up at the three-point. Which works out better for my schedule, anyway.

So it's not too soon to start planning next season, right? Come on, who wants to join me in the #ZakforBachelor campaign? As with all of my next-season wishes, it's hopeless, I know. But wouldn't it be fun? The playground-pick rose-ceremony model of breaking up is the worst imaginable way to be told your beloved doesn't love you, but it gave producers some priceless setup footage for Zak's opening montage. Complaints of never having been in love like this before, check. The probability-challenged clueless-narcissist quote, check. ("Something told me that doing this, I had a good chance of getting out of that slump I've been in so long. I really thought this would work out for me.") And the tragic visual? Please. Can't beat the extremely photo-oppy flinging of the ring out the window. I had Zak picked for high entertainment value at the beginning of the season, and he certainly delivered. Bon voyage, my good man. Hope to see you again.