Playing With Matches

Monday’s date-night on Bravo…

I’ve been watching Date My Ex, on Bravo. Jo, aka, the hot, single girl who used to be on The Real Desperate Housewives of Orange County split with her over protective stay-home-and-be-my-bitch fiance Slade, and has moved to LA to have a music career.

Music? I never saw a guitar in her hand. I only saw Luis Vuitton’s, Jimmy Choo’s and Ugg boots in every color. I think it’d make more sense if  she wanted a job as a buyer at Bloomie’s.

But anyhow, I think one of the things I like best about this show is — like in all reality shows — the people trash the house. But usually, the owner isn’t anywhere around. Instead, the guys are staying in Slade’s house … WITH SLADE.  (Did Slade get a new house? Or is this a ruse, because this is not the house I remember Slade and Jo living in). Frankly, I’m getting a little bit tired of Slade kvetching about how the guys are “disrespecting” his house. Doesn’t he have a maid? Surely he can afford one.

Date my Ex is an odd concept, because Slade and Jo have a whacked out probably-still-sleeping-together relationship. I mean, wasn’t Slade in real estate? Didn’t they meet when she was working for him? But now he’s become Jo’s music manager? Isn’t that just another way of being her Daddy? (How weird is it that her single is, “You can’t control me.” Yeah, he can.)

Anyhow, for people who don’t have as much time to watch Bravo as I do, the basic premise is that guys live in Jo’s former fiance’s house with her former fiance. He kinda screens the guys for her. And he watches her dates on web cam.

This is a guy who pretty much LOST IT when Jo once-upon-a-time got a guy’s business card. Now, he has to live with her new boyfriends, and watch her date them.

This is way better a social experiment than Beauty and the Geek. 

Slade keeps saying that he thought this would be fun…but clearly, the fun stopped after the second or third episode. He’s an inch away from having a melt down. (I can’t wait!!!)

Okay, here’s what happens: every week, three new guys arrive at the house. They all give Jo a present, with a clue about their dates. One sweet kid from Minnesota made a winter wonderland for her and served her hot chocolate. A smarmy Hollywood agent, gave her a Luis Vuitton scarf, and took her for a helicopter rideo over L.A.  (okay, I secretly love him). She’s gone golfing, fishing, surfing, rock climbing, vodka tasting…. And then at the end of each episode, she decides which one guy she wants to go on a second date with. She tells the other two guys,  ”I think we should just be friends.”

Finally, last week, she had a guy who wasn’t gorgeous, and she didn’t really like. (Versus the great guys who talked too much about their work, or their ex.) This creepy older guy TOOK HER TO A HOTEL ROOM on their first date. In the room, he had her try on a bunch of Rodeo Drive evening gowns and told her to pick whatever she wanted. Then he gave her a diamond necklace that she decided not to accept, because it wasn’t really her style. (So, even her awful date, wasn’t anywhere near as bad as one of my more awful dates — like the time the dental student took me to a strip club and then kept biting me in the parking lot. Yada yada yada, I had to break out my high school self-defense moves, and went home with my arms covered in bruises.)

So, Jo has been on 16 first dates and tonight we finally got to watch her go on a second dates. Except, the first guy she chose to go on a second date (the nice Jewish agent) — she just decided to be friends with.

Will she really be friends with any of these guys? Will they ever see her again? 

I decided to take a cue from Jo. The really nice guy who’s really into his Ford Focus keeps calling and e-mailing and inviting me to concerts (that I would want to go to) that are months away. Taking my dating cues from Bravo, I told him that I think we should just be friends. I told him I understand if he doesn’t want that — because I’m sure he already has a lot of friends. I don’t think a friend is what he’s looking for.

He said he figured that out a while ago. And he doesn’t like going to concerts by himself.

“Nah, he doesn’t want to be friends,” my brother said. “He’s just hoping that if he keeps asking you out to concerts, you’ll eventually cave.”

The nice guy asked me out for a concert later this week. It’s a band I saw once 12 years ago, and would probably be happy never seeing again. (I gave away the cd, without burning it to my iPod.) I am not amped. But, then a guy I’m actually excited to see asked me out for the same night.

My dilemma? Do I honor the date I don’t really want to go on? Or do I go out with the guy I want to see? I had dinner with four girls tonight. They were split down the middle. 

I called my brother and sister-in-law as a tie-breaker. 

“Did you already tell him you want to just be friends?”

Yes, last week.

“Tell him something came up. If he really wants to just be friends, he’d love to hear about your dating life.”

That’s working so well for Slade.

In this week’s episode, Jo took her top four guys to a spa. Slade was being so moody and testy on the bus to Palm Springs, that Jo finally had to tell him to go home. He got sad and mad.

Jo had fun on her dates, she showered with a couple of guys, did a little kissing… and then for some unexplained reason, she had to eliminate two guys instead of just one. When she told the model guy that they should just be friends, he said that was fine, because he couldn’t stop thinking about her roommate when he was with her. 

At the end of the elimination — Slade announces that he has feelings for Jo (shocker) and he wants to take her out on a date.

The nice guy from Chicago says he’s done. He’s out. He doesn’t need this. He walks off, Jo runs after him.

I can’t wait to see what happens next. Because, I’m kinda starting to love this show.