True or false: my husband and I would fall in love on a reality dating show
Let's explore this alternate "reality."
First, allow me to speak to you as the most romantic, idealistic version of myself: I believe that my husband is my one and only and that we would fall in love in every time, place, and situation.
Now, allow me to speak to you as a slightly more cynical version of myself who also happens to love herself some reality television: I understand that there are constructed realities in which the powers that be can pull emotional levers in hopes of influencing the outcomes of relationships, romantic and otherwise. As you know if you also indulge in your fair share of these shows, the powers that be are often successful in doing this… at least in the short term.
Knowing this—and knowing a little something about the psychology of reality TV production from a handful of books and podcast deep dives—I (like Carrie Bradshaw before me) couldn’t help but wonder…
Would my husband and I fall for each other on a reality dating show?
Naturally, I like to think that we would. Matt and I have been married for almost eight years and together for almost fifteen, and with that kind of track record, it seems likely that we would experience some natural draw to each other even with producers working (potentially against us) behind the scenes. But we’ve actually discussed this on several previous occasions after falling down the rabbit hole of various binge watching sessions, and guess what? We’re not sure.
What we are sure of is the magic and viability of our partnership in the real world, but given the structures and machinations of reality television, we agree that it’s pretty likely that we’d miss out on what we’ve so luckily fallen into IRL.
For the purposes of this piece, I thought I’d put our feelings and gut responses aside and simply focus on the facts (as I find them online). What is the art and science of falling in love on TV… and would it work for us?
First, let me tell you an abbreviated version of our real love story:
Matt and I have known each other since we were in eighth grade. I was the new girl in town and I vaguely remember my first impression of my now-husband: a lanky cool-guy with a full helmet of fluffy, curly hair on his head. He was an athlete with lots of friends who also happened to be smart enough to kick it in honors classes, which is where I got to know him from afar. As we moved in parallel toward high school graduation, we had mutual friends and found ourselves in many of the same classes, but we rarely interacted. Our school was a big one and he was much cooler than I was we moved in different social circles, so this was to be expected. When my best friend informed me less than an hour after I’d accepted an extremely platonic invitation to the senior prom that Matt Kosik Himself had asked her for my number so he could ask me to the dance, you can only imagine how my adolescent brain started spinning. Like any awkward teen minding her manners, I stuck with my original prom plans and never talked about it again—to Matt or anyone else.
Fast forward about a year and Matt was tagging along with one of our mutual friends to spend Fourth of July weekend in Washington, D.C., where I went to college and was working for the summer. I told them they were welcome to crash with me and my friends and tried to prove that I’d become a chill undergrad gal by acting like I wasn’t freaking out about one of the coolest, smartest guys from my high school graduating class casually joining me for a holiday weekend.
The details of said holiday weekend aren’t important, but what is important is that Matt called me the next weekend and we just… talked. We talked through the rest of that summer and have been talking (and only occasionally not talking) ever since. I learned years later that he’d joined our friend on the drive to D.C. for the express purpose of reconnecting with me.
I know. It’s pretty cute—and I would never trade it for a reality TV origin story.
Currently Reading: Bright Young Women by Jessica Knoll
I love connecting with all of you here, but honestly, I kind of just wish I was reading Bright Young Women right now. This is easily one of the best books I’ve read in a long time. It’s a fictionalization of the Ted Bundy murders at Florida State University in the ‘70s, written primarily from the perspective of the president of the sorority he attacked. As you can imagine, it has its graphic moments, so check out trigger warnings if that serves you!
Like all couples, we’ve experienced plenty of ups and downs, all of which have (duh) strengthened our relationship and informed the quirky little subculture that is now our family. Our common roots have helped, too. Reality show producers and matchmakers might think that they know what they’re doing, but they can’t compete with nearly two decades of shared references and memories of hilarious events like our school’s Final Rivals Games, from which everyone exited covered in pudding.
Still, the question remains: would we fall in love on a reality dating show?
Let’s dig in and figure it out.
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