Nobody gets anywhere by going home and watching television every night. But that's exactly what happens in a lot of relationships that make it through the swooning haze of early romance. It can be hard to keep improvising activities and romantic goose chases through night corridors of a city. After a few months, the urgency of staying out past midnight in new neighborhoods every other weeknight transforms into a familiar comfort that makes staying in and watching television seem just as inviting. I was reminded of this while watching the first episode of Tool Academy tonight.
I can't watch scripted television shows anymore. I've become a reality show addict, and nothing caters to an addictive personality quite like reality shows. I've spent many Sundays sitting on the couch watching entire seasons of The Real World, Big Brother, Beauty & The Geek, Shot at Love, I Love New York from start to finish. I've gorged on so much vapid nothingness, quick-cut into mouthwatering bites of outbursts, conflict, and sexual voyeurism; it's a hard comedown to settle in for the night with some plodding episode of Law & Order.
Reality shows are like LA, something a lot of people feel comfortable scorning. I've never dated anyone who shared my wholesale affection for reality shows. When I've found myself snuggled up on the couch on a Wednesday night with a woman, it's rare that I'll be indulged for more than a couple commercial breaks of reality programming. There's an indignance many people have about it, as if they're better than consuming such exploitive cultural filth.
It may be exploitive, and it rarely has any lasting artistry or poignancy underneath, but I still love it. Reality shows are designed around suggested visual punchlines intended to ridicule their actors in some way. A deadpan cut after a muscle-headed guy with mousse in his hair says something stupid tells the audience what conclusion they're supposed to reach in a split second.
I also like the jealousy reality shows inspiresin me. Watching Tool Academy, especially, I couldn't help curling my toes in envy when all the men pulled off their shirts and stepped into speedos, flexing their muscled bodies for the camera. The camera never lingers for more than a split second, but the suggestion of physical superiority gooses my ego. It never goes very deep, but it feels good to be taunted a little bit, it's a kind of emotional exercise, like a cat flexing its claws subconsciously in sleep.
Confessing that I like reality television is as embarrassing as the first time you fart around someone new. Both are ubiquitous and both serve a crude function that, despite protestations, everyone has to fulfill sooner or later. It's both intimate and incriminating, an admission or imperfection.
Which is why it kind of felt like smelling my own farts tonight, home alone and watching the first episode of Tool Academy. I miss not feeling kind of embarrassed about it.
Previous Posts:
Sex Machine: Getting Laid
Love Machine: I Was a Six Year-Old Virgin, or Is There A Happy Ending?
Date Machine: Getting Pierced on a Date
Love Machine: Hitting Snooze on the Morning After
Date Machine: Let Me Seduce You With The Cardigans
Date Machine: I'm Too Sexy For Your Blog
Love Machine: Breaking Up Is Hard To Do, or Leaving Home
Date Machine: Super Macho Man Slumber Party
Sex Machine: Having Sex in Your Parents' House During the Holidays
Date Night: Trying to Behave on a Boring Coffee Date
Sex Machine: Sex with Older Women, or How I Would Make Love to Gloria Swanson
Love Machine: Using Your Words, or I Like Pap
Date Machine: Drunk Emailing with J, or How To Fail at Seduction
Sex Machine: Listening to the Neighbors Have Sex
Date Night: In Which I Try To Believe In Aliens
Date Machine: Rate My Pick-Up Lines Redux
Love Machine: Loyal as a Dog
Date Machine: Rate My Politics
High School Machine: Ten-Year Reunion Fantasies
Date Machine: Setting Up Your Friends
Sex Machine: Having Sex at Weddings Redux
Love Machine: Making Love to ESPN
Date Machine: 5 Things I'm Thankful For