Lights, Camera, Flirt
Could I find love on a reality dating show?
When you're single, you have the option of keeping your dating life as private - or as public - as you wish. You can float your anonymous bait online. You can network among friends. Or, if you're really daring, and maybe a little stupid, you'll make it the subject of a reality TV dating show.
I found out just how public public is when I was featured on last Sunday's kickoff episode of NESN's Sox Appeal, now in its second season. If you haven't seen it, here's the deal: A hero (in my case, a guy) meets with three singles during the course of a Sox game and then decides which one he'd like to see again.
Early in the casting process I sat down with a roomful of producers - a cool, arty clutch of folks with smart glasses and distressed jeans. And they had questions: What had my recent relationships been like? Whom did I want to meet most, and why? They nodded, took notes. I realized that this might be the best dating service I'd ever have the opportunity to use. Plugging in a few fields on an online dating profile is simply no match for a team of producers who, based on what you tell them, pore over head shots, even comb the city's bars and restaurants, for men you might like.
The hero was a guy named Dave, a Web designer by day, improv actor by night. He was good-looking in a nondescript way - someone you might sleep with, but probably not fight over. And despite my efforts to be on my best behavior for the viewing public, before our inning was up, I had unleashed my overtalker and backed him into a corner, egged on at the sidelines by producers waving cue cards ("Ask him about his last girlfriend" and "Talk about his career"). I couldn't help it. The game, the crowds, the cameras seemed to collapse into one huge, clattering dome of sound and light, and I was no more on date with this man than Regis is having coffee with his talk-show guests. I had morphed into some kind of performing monkey, responding more to pressure to entertain and appeal than to establish any kind of real rapport.
And yet somehow I managed a kind of relentless self-confidence. After all, had already met the competition - an attractive, if aloof, vegetarian chef from Connecticut and a blonde from Florida in a peekaboo blouse. I might have 10 years on these chicks, but I had them both beat in the personality department. And I lived here - I hadn't driven up for the game or moved to Brighton from Tampa last week. I was the real thing. I walked away from our date sure I had it in the bag.
In fact, I didn't. When Dave held up his sign in the ninth inning, announcing his choice, my name wasn't on it. The night had gone to the blonde who could tie a cherry stem with her tongue (of course). But after the initial slap to the ego, I felt a kind of relief, the way you feel when a decision simply isn't yours to make.
I also realized that as much of a spectacle as this whole ordeal was, this had been one of the least confusing dates I'd ever had. No guesswork, no misread signs, every phase of it carefully choreographed and considered.
Truth be told, if it were in my budget, I'd seriously consider hiring my own posse of producers and directors to executive-produce my dating life. Not that I haven't managed thus far (and not that I'm deluded enough to think anyone would want to watch), but it wouldn't hurt to have a team of folks to consult on casting decisions or wave the occasional cue card when conversation slows to a halt. I'd love to have someone with an earpiece and a clipboard tell me when to walk in ("Wait - OK, go"), when to leave, and what topics to bring up (or avoid). And best of all, to share in the collective misery that is so often the dater's solo plight. "What an ass," one of the production assistants said to me as he wound yards of extension cord around one arm. "I so would have picked you." Now that kind of support would be worth every penny.
Terri Trespicio is a senior editor at Body+Soul magazine. She lives in Waltham. Send comments to coupling@globe.com.
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