Thursdays are reserved for coupling. We don’t expect everyone to go out there and hump on a loved one but wouldn’t it be nice? Wouldn’t it be wonderful if we all woke up on Thursday knowing that all the adults would be in good moods or too busy getting busy to care? And if we are elected President of the World, we will institute this as law. We can see them doing a reality show about us: ‘Lee and Paul: Presidents and Lovers’. Ah, but this is a few years away and we still need to talk about Reality Shows that are a good example of human relations. Does it even exist?

          Lee says: We know that Reality TV can be the death knell to a relationship. We have seen it time and again where a couple or family do a reality show and they implode from the heat of the stage lights. Jessica Simpson and Nick Lachey, The Hogans, Paris and Nicole are just a few who have suffered the cruel pressure of living under a microscope. However, we have found that there is another couple who have been doing this for a while and they seem to be doing alright.

          I like ‘Guiliana and Bill’ on the Style Network. First of all, they are not so young that their immaturity clouds the show and yet they are fresh enough that you can see them working out their relationship. There is plenty of the staged, fakey scripted shit you see on other shows and yet, every episode demonstrates at least one scene where the veneer is taken down and you see some real emotions. Whether it was anger or frustration or sheer grief and empathy, these two actually feel things for each other. For example, the episode this season where they discuss Bill’s father and how he died of kidney cancer. Bill is seen to emote and Guiliana shares the moment with him and cries as well. Or when she is nervous during a visit to the infertility specialist and he puts on a glove and jokes around.

          I guess those moments’ elicited memories for me; memories of my husband sharing stories about his grandmother (who also happens to be Elizabeth) and how she was always supportive of him. Or the times we were at the gynecologist’s office whether it was infertility or when I was pregnant and Paul would goof around and make me laugh. You know the funny part where your husband puts his arm around the doctor and looks in while the speculum is inside? Or, my personal favorite, when Paul would grab the ultrasound wand and talk dirty to me. Yeah, he’s a pig but he is my pig. I will always be grateful to him for distracting me and reminding me at the end of the day it is only about him and me. 

          I also like Bill and Guiliana as people. They are not pretentious and any semblance that they are celebrity is relegated to what they do for a living; it isn’t who they are. This is so important because fame or failure does not define you. What you do does not define you. The definition of a man or woman is simply about who they are being. Being genuine. Being loving. Being goofy. Being vulnerable. These are all the wonderful makings of people who will be able to relate to their partner. Two celebrities are unable to be in relationship because each of them is like a planet with atmospheres and satellites. When they circle each other as planets (celebrities) that big of a gravitational pull would ultimately either suck the oxygen from the other or cause them to collide and explode.

          If you watch the other shows where the relationship imploded you will see that the people were being ‘celebrities’ and that that was their personality. There was no vulnerability. And so that we are clear, being demanding and bitchy is not being real. If that were true I would have an Oscar by now. I’m talking rip-out-my-heart this is who I am: chubby, mushy and a little unstable. That makes a real couple and that is reality.           

          Paul says: I love the chubby, mushy and a little unstable diva of my life. I think that we would make a great reality show. One full hour of me looking longingly at Lee. No? I can do it while snorting Girl Scout cookies off of her ass.