Like many couples, Tim and I like to find activities that we both enjoy. One thing we often do is pick out a show to watch together. It gives us something to look forward to when we’re apart and something to discuss when we’re together.
During the pandemic, we watched Somebody Feed Phil, a delightful blend of travel log and food porn to enjoy while travel restrictions were in full swing. After that, we have been catching episodes of Abbot Elementary, a funny and insightful show about an underfunded public school that serves inner-city, minority students. And finally, we have been indulging our dark side by watching trainwrecks on a Netflix show called Married at First Sight.
The premise of the show is for couples to skip the frying pan of the dating world, and jump straight into to fire of married life. Matchmaking is a centuries-old tradition of having community elders work with parents to pick spouses for their progeny based on shared religion, social standing and known character. This isn’t that.
Instead, this show casts its participants with online Buzz-Feed surveys, and interviews with experts including Pastor Cal, a minister ordained at the Church of Elvis in Las Vegas, Dr. Pepper (the person, not the soda) and Dr. Viviana Cole, a therapist who has trademarked her own name-branded method of relationship therapy sold on the internet. How could these pairs possibly go right?
Tim and I have completed watching Season 10!?, and so far we have thoughts. The first is that we are glad to have spent a few years dating before taking the legal and emotional plunge of getting married. Sporadically, Facebook tosses up photos of the days when we were double-income, no kids with separate apartments. Having some physical and emotional breathing room for a new relationship is a luxury these television couples don’t have, and it shows. It takes time to build trust and navigate the differences between people. Emotional intimacy grown in a television production hothouse may not weather the storms of life well.
The second major way this show sandbags the couples is giving them everything free. In real life, it costs money to pay for a ring, a wedding and a honeymoon. We had to work, save and plan for those things. We enlisted all of our friends and family to pull off the wedding. Tim and I paid for most of it working hours and hours at our jobs. These good-looking dummies invest nothing of themselves, yet they expect to make a withdrawal of love and affection. People just don’t have the same respect and care for things they didn’t earn.
Finally, the last barrier these show couples have to overcome is having a live television crew filming them day and night. Do you really want your mom to see you making out on a couch? Would you like your nonsensical fight over laundry to be seen by your work colleagues? Is having instant playback of your bachelor party for your boss to see really a good idea? We live in a social media age, but who really wants every detail of their whole relationship blasted out for public comment, forever. After the shows have aired, I wonder if some of the participants may struggle socially and professionally. You can not unspill the tea.