Public Breakups

Last night, I watched that train wreck of an interview ABC did with Jake and Vienna from The Bachelor. Lawd have mercy, y’all – it was ugly.

First things first. The host of the show kept calling it a “shocking breakup” – although I’m pretty sure that even my niece, who hasn’t been born yet – wasn’t shocked by it. The world saw this one coming. What we didn’t see coming was whom we would find ourselves siding with.

So, for those of you who have a life and didn’t watch, the interview went a little like this: Vienna claims he’s emotionally and physically detached from her. Jake accuses her of cheating, and says she constantly interrupted and undermined him. Vienna says he’s a liar. Jake yells at her to stop interrupting him. Vienna does the ugly cry. Jake glares at Vienna like he wishes she would vanish from this Earth. Vienna exits in tears.

Now, as much as I would normally enjoy this, I found myself wanting it to just hurry up and be over. (And, let’s face it – I didn’t have the self-restraint to change the channel, so them ending it or a power outage were my only options.) I was also shocked to discover that I, who dislikes Vienna immensely, actually took her side. (I still think she’ll be Hugh Hefner’s next new girlfriend, but I digress.) The breakup interview that I had been looking forward to beginning turned out to be something that I couldn’t wait to end. Sigh.

Reality television. It’s all fun and games until you end up in the middle of a couples therapy session…and then it’s just uncomfortable.