How Do You Know You are Naïve When You are Naïve?

How Do You Know You’re Naïve When You’re Naïve? by Roxanne McDonald

Just curious. Though the kittens of “Age of Love” apparently could care less.

The second installment of “Age of Love” inspired so many questions—such as the how do you know you’re in denial when you are in denial question. Kind of along the lines of why would a woman claim to be looking for an “intellectual challenge” and then pursue this particular bachelor…even after meeting him and sitting through the

crickets-louder- than-the- conversation-which-is-almost-nil scenes?
Maybe these newcomers, or even Mark, are on the wrong show? Maybe more their speed would be Are You Smarter than a Fifth Grader?

Anyway.

After we at home are forced to sit through a re-run of the first episode, the second brings on the babes…or the “younger choices,” as host Mark (oh, I am confused already with two Marks) points out in his pointing out the obvious way.

Lauren is first to meet Mark, the thus far good sport. She is 25 and says she always gets what she wants.

Amanda is 25 and been through a lot already. (Just wait till you’re 40 and look back on how mean you were about “old” women. Hahahahaha. I’d love to be there to kick your pills out of reach.) Her most original concern is to find a man who doesn’t play games. Oh, don’t make me get out the dictionary.

Mary is 24 and says she is fun-loving. She also, she confides, stutters when she is nervous. She doesn’t up the excitement value of the show, but does tell her fellows that she did NOT do a good JOB. What job? You said hello, he looked at your youthful boobs. Done.

Tessa is 23. She may not be the brightest light in the night, but she inspired this week’s title question, and, besides, SHE thinks she is all that: says she is funny, says she has “great thoughts” (like Schweitzer’s? Kierkegaard’s? Sartre’s?). She needs an intellectual challenge she explicitly states, implying, I guess, that she believes she might just very well find it in this guy. What’s that saying? Don’t take your bucket to an empty well?

Megan is 21. Jesus, we’re regressing quickly, here. But we are also made privy to the second one to inspire such queries: she says that people judge her for being young, and that she may be naïve, but in her mind she doesn’t know that. [pause]. Okay…, what? There are so many things wrong with this statement that I can barely get past the kind of discussion that feels compelled to say that her thinking is “in her mind”. Like one who is a great poet with great feelings deep inside. Megan needs to chat with Tessa.

Now, the time has come for post-meet-and-greet, and while the cougars only got the poolside advantage, the kittens get to show off some skills IN the pool. This just made me do a double-take on the show’s metaphor attempts: pool…water…cats…. Hmm.

Never mind the lack of depth, for a minute. The group with such high expectations just kind of float in place, the bobbling boobs more engaged in activity than their owners. No one talks. Even the quiet guy with a less than capacious intellectual repertoire is uncomfortable. He says he wants someone who knows what she wants…, but first, he smirks, he wants someone who TALKS.

Somebody had, poolside, broken the utter nightmare than is first meetings by squealing over owning a dog, and guess who that is? Tessa. Okay, sure, on first dating encounters you don’t typically get all deep, but opening with the fluffy pet card?

Okay, so they talk about flying—Mark wants to pilot, Megan has a fear of flying. (Did we notice this on the plane ride in?)

And when Mark gets back to his pad, he confesses he misses the cougars.

Yeeeah. Hey, we 40-somethings can squeal, too. Note how they do just that on a date with Mark at a roller rink, where they have to dress in costume. They are just excited to have Mark back, and he is as delighted to see them, finding their giddiness a reinforcement for how much he really misses them.

40 is the new 20, by the way, according to Angela. The rink is the place to hold hands like eighth-graders, says Maria. And “Age of Love” is the place for a competition to win a one-on-one with Mark—a limbo competition. How far back do you think these cougars GO?

Limbos and roller rinks and all…I’m thinking wayyyy back, and at 48 myself, I am concerned that the fifties were not the nostalgic years of our ownership. Instead, how about some Haight-Ashbury incense-burning rock and roll to remind them of the feelings of teen dating and all? As in…the SEVENTIES, for God’s sake.

Maria wins the solo date, and what DOES seem more like days gone by—thank God—is when the inappropriate Jennifer horns in on the two when they are supposed to be on their one-on-one time. Isn’t Jennifer also the one who boasts she doesn’t LOOK her age?

Not to neglect those oh-so-sure-we-are-better babes…. Mary is weeping over having blown it, like, a million light years back, and can’t get over it, despite the “positive power” she has [deep inside her soul, I wait for her to add].

Another competition is right on the ass of the first one, and the chosen Megan, Adelaide, and Amanda meet Mark in his apartment to do a dance-along-with the computer/TV program and dance mats system. Whatever. Important is how Mark aims to bring them out and how the kittens think this set-up is ideal for fostering closeness.

But then Adelaide pulls a Jennifer, and we are back to “The Bachelor” without the class. Then again….

The one…teeny…redeeming factor I appreciate about “Age of Love” is that there is some homeostasis in the elimination round. Mark is informed he must get rid of one cougar and one kitten (though host Mark doesn’t say those words, exactly). Mark says goodbye to Lauren and Angela. I was thinking how cool it was of Mark to do it this way, but then as I caught it again, saw it is protocol built into the show.

So that made me question how this many weeks (what, eight?) of does age matter will not be all that exploratory but will be balanced and fair and all that and will only be addressed, really, in one single, final episode.

So we can TiVo or wait till the last week to get something substantive, something other than copycat content that falls way short—regardless of what ages are involved at any stage or in any capacity of the production.

Sigh.

SirLinksAlot Age of Love links

1 Comment »

1. I really like this show :’>

   Comment by webmaster — July 1, 2007 @ 6:55 pm

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