real life TV

I know there are a lot of people out there who really like the Real Housewives series on Bravo. I am not one of them. I'm not saying that I'm in anyway too cool to watch reality TV...in fact I may have lingered a little longer than the ear doctor would approve of on the Bachelor last night.

But, for some reason, the Real Housewives just don't really interest me.

I think it's because they seem, to me, like grown women acting with the insecurity of high school girls.

And I thought that just wasn't very realistic.

But maybe I'm wrong.


Last night the ear doctor and I went out for dinner at this local Italian place. We sat in a booth in the corner and another group of diners had pulled two tables together and were sitting right next to us. The group consisted of about 8 women in their 40's. Since the dining room wasn't very full when we started eating and our tables were so close together we couldn't help but overhear snippets of their conversation. At first I thought they were a group of coworkers out for dinner together. They seemed nice, friendly and appeared to get along well. They seemed comfortable and happy together.

About 30 minutes later the dining room had filled and we all were tucking into our plates of spaghetti. There was a lull in their conversation and one woman said something like, "well, we did come together to have a meeting so we might as well get started."

To me, this seemed to be even more evidence of some professional relationship. Or maybe they went to the same church and were organizing something. Or a volunteer group or something. I was a bit shocked by what happened next.

One of the women went on the aggressive defensive and started yelling at the group saying how they weren't good friends and were expecting too much from her and how she never felt like she was part of the group. Then another accused her of being a fake friend and how her facebook status was offensive.

This craziness started getting louder and louder and more and more intense until they were swearing at each other and everyone else in the dining room had fallen silent.

It was the most amazingly awesome/rude/frightening/compelling thing I've seen in a long time. It was like being too horrified by a car accident to turn away. I had to sit there and wonder why they thought what was happening was acceptable to do in public.

I felt like I was watching an episode of the Real Housewives in person.

I guess that show isn't as unrealistic as I originally thought.