A Monday has come and nearly gone, and the Writer remains chained in the dankness of his scribbler’s warren, seized by the bitter darkness that attends the cold winds of hopelessness and despair.¹These are metaphors, you know. And yet, as the daylight wanes and the hoarfrost descends, there is no post. No hope. Only a bleak, suffocating sense of emptiness.

What harsh deity delivers this wrath upon my sensitive – yea, though ceaselessly questing – spirit? What miasma of gloom places its icy, bony fingers on my neck, reminding me of the impossibility of relief, the sheer and forbidding rock walls that bind my very soul?

Yes. It is The Bachelor/ette. On ABC.

My Women²Implying no sense of ownership, naturally, but merely referencing our familial proximity. watch The Bachelor/ette. It is a time for chocolate, popcorn, and (well deserved) hyper-critical fashion commentary. The girls, they bond and giggle, they take a well-deserved break from the rigors of their jam-packed lives. They have earned their pleasure.

Alas, the presence of this program within 100 feet of my person is the televideo equivalent of a thin-needle aspiration removing my scant remaining testosterone directly from my bits and pieces. I quail, I quiver, I quest for another tremor word that begins with ‘Q’. To no avail. There is no exit, no hope.

Because I am Immune to Boredom(TM), I do not fall asleep during the broadcast. Quite the contrary. Against all reason, I am consumed by the fabricated dramatics, the over-emphasized faux sexuality and faux bosoms. I confer moral judgments and establish favorites among those competing for their shot at true love, but only for those worthy emblems of strong womanliness deserving of my affections. The rest are targets of my withering scorn. Harlots!

Of course, my emotional investments are well-shrouded by snark, by sarcasm, by base commentary on the lack of basic intelligence exhibited by, well, everyone on the show. I am, I realize with a frisson of self-satisfaction, a laugh riot, the personification of comedy gold, mirth made flesh. Certainly my witticisms and piercing bon mots earn me the accolades of My Women³Again, proximate, not property., spurring them to cast roses at my feet and gently slip bon bons between my wise-acreing lips?

Alas, no. No prophet is extolled in his own land, and instead I face umbrage and exile. And now I will never know which animatronic inflatable will claim the heart of our hunky-yet-sensitive man beast who only wants to find true lasting love just like every good man before him has done – by sleeping in succession with 16 conventionally beautiful women with genuinely stunted mental capacity.

America. Freedom. And I, lonely man, am cast off the island.⁴Different show, I know, but the meta-metaphor that connects one sliver of the…oh fuck it, you get the point.

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