reality-show-widower

Every one over the age of 30 (40? 50?) has heard of the term “football widow”. It refers to a woman whose husband is so enamored of the spheroid-based game that during football season the man is a virtual non-being. He is so caught up in the game that the wife is in effect a “football widow”, she has no real husband during that 16+ (18? 20?) week season.

Now I’ve come across an interesting mutation of that phenomena which I will call a “reality-show-widower”.

Being a reality-show-widower is worse than being a football widow - much worse.

Everyone under the age of 30 (20?, 10?) knows what reality shows are. They know the contestants on American Idol by name, and by season. They know what nights Big Brother is on (actually that’s easy, apparently its on every damn night!) They know the profession, age and idiosyncrasies of every Survivor contestant ever. And that’s at least 500 people. They know everything about every crazy reality show, the airwaves are flooded with them and more are on the way every day. There is NO reality show “season”. THere is not a single time of the year when there isn’t at least one all-engrossing-reality-show-contest of the wills going on.

So forget “football widow” - that’s nothing. Once your spouse (football is usually male, reality show seems to be mostly female) is addicted to the thrill of real(?!?) people in real(?!?) situations YOU ARE ALONE.

I tried watching reality shows. I made it through the 1st season of Survivor, didnt get a prize, but i saw the end. I tried watching Dwarf Marriage and Gayfriend Mixup Party and others too horrifying and certainly too numerous to mention. But it doesnt work. I can’t feign interest in something which has no meaning to me (another parellel to football widow).

So instead I accept my fate and the fact that regardless of the season, between the hours of 7-10PM (8-11 Central) I am without a family, a man alone with nothing to do but wait for football season to start.