She lets her desperation and heartbreak show

The Bachelorette

Every so often, a television show will come along that is the equivalent of a car wreck on the side of the freeway: awful to look at yet so compelling that I just can’t look away. So it is with The Bachelorette. I have not been a regular viewer of this show but I decided to partake of the current rotation and got stuck with the blubbering mess named Ali Fedotowsky.

Last night’s episode reminded me of why I am not a regular viewer of this show: looking for love on TV never seemed like a good idea in the first place and a desperate needy whiner woman looking for love who reminds her suitors that “I’ve given up everything to be here” on almost every episode is not only tiresome and narcissistic but also sounds borderline crazy (and I don’t mean that in a fun way).

Photo: ABC Television

Photo: ABC Television

But must-see TV it was as Ali boo-hooed her way through Frank dumping her while in her starring role by telling her that he’s still into the old girlfriend. Ouch.

Certainly Ali couldn’t have been so unrealistic that she expected everything to be all gumdrops and roses when you have people looking for their next fame opportunity soulmate on national television.

But due to her obvious desperation and heartbreak, she can’t see the lemonade in this lemon: better to be dumped now than later. He could have dumped her after there was a real commitment (i.e. marriage, maybe even a child or two) which would have been more painful and possibly expensive. But since Ali has focused all her energy around everything she’s given up—her job, her home, her puppy, etc.—to look for her husband on national television, there’s no upside if there’s no man to complete her. (Plus ABC won’t pick up the wedding tab if she doesn’t marry one of these remaining guys.)

This show is lunacy, plain and simple. The past few cycles of this show always have the same outcome: after baring their souls (with sometimes laughable thoughts), the desperate love seeker ends up with someone that they eventually break up with.

This show (and its brethren, The Bachelor) has a track record of failure and this cycle is no different. According to the National Enquirer, she doesn’t pick either of the remaining schmucks bachelors because she’s busy pining over Frank.

The only downside that my inner cynical optimist sees is that Frank missed out on the free trip to Bora Bora (which seems like the only logical reason to endure this nonsense in the first place).

Well, Ali, you aren’t the first and certainly, with all the airtime hours on broadcast and cable  to fill, won’t be the last to get your heart broken on television.  In the meantime, you can take comfort in the words of the unlucky-in-love legendary Judy Garland:

The man that won you has gone off and undone you… There is nothing sadder than a one-man woman looking for the man that got away…