A bit of tele watching ……
It is Stage 4 lockdown in Melbourne. One can be forgiven for watching a bit of reality escapism television, after a hard day at the office. My office is a mental health ward in a psychiatric hospital and by the end of the day I am more than happy to relax in front of the tele with a glass of wine (or two).
And so I am watching the first episode of The Bachelor 2020 on Wednesday night, for my entertainment pleasure. Ever since I sat in front of the show five years before, crying my eyes out after a major relationship break up, gin and tonic in hand, I seem to have developed a strange kind of attachment to the reality show.
Watching others seek love and happily ever after wedded bliss, fascinated me, as well as the fact of watching women put themselves up for major rejection in front of the whole of Australia. It also gave me and my work mates something to gossip about and have fun with the next day at work.
Given that I profess to be of a feminist penchant, it is kind of strange and paradoxical that I should be glued to such a show of glitz, glamour, inauthenticity and immature expectations around love. But here I am confessing such things without shame. Well maybe just a little bit of shame. Most of my intelligent friends are shocked that I should stoop to watch such rubbish!
So I start watching at 7.30 pm sharp, Chardonnay in hand, waiting to be entertained and fascinated, by the latest handsome bachelor and his bevy of beautiful women. Bella looks gorgeous, Rosemary emerges in a penguin suit and Laura is bitchy about her insatiable need for material gifts.
Locky, the handsome bachelor greets them all. The girls giggle ridiculously, speak in high pitched voices and after about 20 minutes, I cannot bear it. It is an insult to my intelligent womanhood. I try to keep watching, determined to be entertained, gossip about who Locky will pick the next day at work, but alas my heart just cannot do it.
Completely disheartened I change channels. My attachment is ruptured, gone forever and I can’t even cry about it. My despairing heart turns to Netflix and I watch Grace and Frankie launch their vibrator business for older women. Much more entertaining and age appropriate for the sophisticated older woman that I am.
My daughter in Sydney, younger than I, tells me the following night that she switched off Bachie after 20 minutes also.
I am redeemed and cured. Hallelujia ………
