The Bachelorette and the sociopath

sistersister says:

I actually happened to be flipping through the channels when this tearful scene happened. It was so bad, it was good. Even so, I moved on. I didn’t think it was an unusual scene for one of these shows until I saw it reported on Entertainment Tonight or something.

This whole episode kind of begs the question of what “sincere” really is. Courting a woman for a lifelong commitment on a . . . TV show?

Absolutely! I was tempted to make the same observation myself. The only reason I didn’t was that I didn’t know enough about this Bachelor(ette) show to know what time scale it was conducted over.

The whole idea is ridiculous anyway, in my view. Just to start with, courting is a PRIVATE activity! Having to do all this so publicly, with an audience of millions, and the severe constraints that imposes on the natural and necessary procedure of “getting to know a person” in detail at an intimate level, makes the entire process preposterous. I sure as heck wouldn’t want to do it!

On top of that, if these couples are genuinely considering marriage, it takes AT LEAST six months for any newly-formed relationship to “shake down” into anything like the pattern it’s eventually going to take. It’s like the “Forming, Storming, Norming” phenomenon we find in group dynamics, but on a longer time scale. The “Norming” part of a couple relationship often occurs between the third and the sixth month, once the partners have started getting to know one another better. A lot of unconscious negotiation and “adjustment” to one another takes place during that phase, even if the couple hardly realize it at the time. It’s only afterward that they can settle down to the final stage, “Performing.” It’s no accident that couples have traditionally been advised to get to know one another for at least a YEAR before marrying. “Courting” is a process that can’t be properly condensed into a shorter schedule, any more than pregnancy can be! That’s another reason why trying to do all this within the time scale of a TV show is absurd, even if it is a whole season.

I’ve always found these shows hard to watch not because I suspect they’re scripted or rigged, but because they’re painfully real. There really are people like that out there, talking about “forever” and all that based on a few nights hanging out in a hot tub.

Unfortunately that’s true.

Any spath worth his/her stripes has got to look at this and say, Wow, what an opportunity. It’s the kind of world where sociopathy is, if not completely normal, at least consistent with the shallow and cheaply sentimental act that’s pulled off in front of the cameras.

Not just “sociopathy,” but social pathology in general. This can include various forms of psychopathology, but also what I might call “cultural pathology”: people being raised with dysfunctional values. That can mean shallowness, or excessive naivety.

Anyway you’re right; unfortunately this behavior DOES reflect a proportion of shallow people in the larger society who (among other things) are too easily seduced by glitz and glamor.

There’s just something seriously wrong, fantasylandish, about the American way of mating when people actually watch shiny 25-year-olds do all this on national TV and call that normal. Our expectations are both at an all-time low targeting potential mates based on their looks and interest in the same movies as us and an all-time high “forever” commitments to monogamy in an amusement-park society populated by P.R. princesses in halter tops and guys who used to tend bar in Daytona Beach.

Well, there is a problem, but I wouldn’t quite put it that way myself.

First, who is this “US” you’re talking about when you speak of “our” expectations? Judging from what you said later, I don’t believe you meant to include yourSELF among these shallow people who choose potential mates based on their looks? As for me, I’m not part of that “us” either. So I don’t think you’re talking about “us.” I think you’re talking about “THEM”—some OTHER group of people who make these silly choices. It’s important to distinguish between “us,” the more functional people in this case, and “them,” the people who keep messing up.

Also, this reference to an “American way of mating” suggests that “us” refers to “Americans” seen as a single group. But trying to lump people together like that makes it look as if they’re all the same when they’re not. As I said, I don’t go around targeting potential mates based on their looks, neither do you, and neither do plenty of other Americans. I know scads of people, including many of my own relatives, who chose their mates well enough, married in all sincerity, and made a success of their marriages. Granted, there are far too many divorces in America today, but the last I heard was that half of all marriages do still continue indefinitely. A fair proportion of the rest last long enough for the couple to raise their children in a proper two-parent home much of the time. Meanwhile, a high proportion of the marriages that do fail are the same messed-up people making the same bad choices over and over again.

Besides, what other system of mating would be better? This is not an “American” problem. Plenty of Europeans for one also make a poor choice of mate based on superficial reasons. Australians and South Africans too, I’m sure. Then would we prefer an “Indian way of mating,” when many couples in India are still paired by “arranged marriages”? Granted, some arranged marriages can work well, IF the families in question are thoughtful in thoosing partners for their children who are compatible. But that’s not always the case. Often an arranged marriage is a disaster. I’m sure most people here prefer an “American way of mating” in which they at least get to choose their mate themselves.

So once again, the problem isn’t with some group called “Americans.” It’s with a minority of people who mess up by being shallow and superficial in their choice of mate. (I know people pick the wrong mate for other reasons too, but that’s not the issue that prompted this discussion.) Part of this reflects a need for better education. But some of it is just about human nature. Some humans will always be imperfect—“impulsive” or whatever the character flaw is—and any “society” always has a certain proportion of them.

None of this is to deny what you said, that the problem with “them,” with people choosing partners for shallow reasons, has been growing. It may indeed be at an “all time high.” But that’s not due to being “American.” Much of it is a product of AFFLUENCE, pure and simple. While it’s all fine and dandy for a society to have “more,” one consequence of economic security is that people’s life decisions are not as critical to survival as they used to be. Often that means they make those decisions more lightly—including a choice of marriage partner.

If we could only ever afford one car, we’d better pick it very carefully. But if we know we can afford to trade one in that we don’t like and pick another, we’re more likely to buy on a whim. That’s all very well, but when people choose a marriage partner on a whim, that can cause a lot of problems for all concerned, most of all the children.

Of course, the problems of affluence are still not as bad as the problems of poverty. When people “have” to marry someone just in order to survive, life can be pretty brutal. But affluence brings problems in its train as well. And if problems of superficiality and shallowness—of social decadence—are especially noticeable in America, that’s only because America is more affluent than most other countries in the world. Many others, Europe in particular, are not far behind with the same problems.

Finally, I don’t understand the other statement at all: that expectations of “forever” commitments to monogamy are at an all-time HIGH. I’d say they’re at an all-time LOW! Far too many people these days regard marriage as disposable!

That’s the other part of the problem: that too many people are NOT taught to take marriage as a necessary and serious commitment, the way they used to be. When they’re not, they’re more prone to make choices that aren’t properly thought through.

I hope the lessons Princess Ashley (Tiffany, Jennifer, Shawna, whatever) learns from this are more than just how to avoid a sociopath. I hope she seeks some depth herself, and how real life only gets interesting once you’ve left all that kid stuff behind and embraced the less-than-handsome, not-so-rich, just quirky and emotionally available men out there and re-connected with the real world you live in…

Yes indeed. I hope she marries such a man too, if she wants any kids. That’s a lot better than marrying a psychopath, being forced to ditch him, and ending up having to raise kids without their father. Besides, people should avoid breeding from psychopaths if they can.

Because basically, they’re selling us low self-esteem on these shows: the idea that if we’re not Ashley-beautiful and Bentley-sweet, or finding people like that in our lives, we’re defective.

This is something I do NOT understand. Do you really think people are that stupid? Because if they are, a lot of humans must be far dumber than I ever gave them credit for.

I mean, we live in a nation of over THREE HUNDRED MILLION people! How many of them ever appear on TV? When producers pick people to star in their shows, they can afford to pick the best, the most beautiful or handsome, the most talented—and often (as a result) the richest, out of all those millions. These people are NOT “average.” Far from it! In those respects they may be more “attractive” than 99 percent of the population!

Knowing that, why should anyone feel “inadequate” because they’re not as glamorous as a TV star? Don’t they look around them at the ORDINARY people in their lives and in their communities?

Instead of fixating on a TV screen, they ought to take a tip from some comedian (I forget who it was), who said “Any time I’m feeling depressed, I go down to the local Wal-Mart and look at some of the people there. Thank God my life’s not like THAT! Then I feel much better!”