Hopes and Expectations

Sounds like a song title. I grouped these two things together because they are pretty similar.

Hope can help us through dark times with promises that it will get better, but what if it doesn't? And what happens with false hope? Something you hope for might help you with a circumstance, but some people just hope for something better and do nothing about it. Having hope can be good, but not having too much hope. In the case of false hope, where what you are hoping for has almost no chance of happening, why bother constructing that hope in the first place? Hope seems like a mind trick that we use to deceive ourselves. I think of it as a sort of temporary solution. Not surprisingly, there have been psychological studies about hope and one found that college students who were low in hope in their first year had worse degree results three years later. Pessimistic people as I tend to be can't really have hope.

Expectations are hard not to have. Whenever we make any decisions, even about little things, we have to think of what can happen from those choices. If we expect something to happen and it doesn't, it's really disappointing. That's why I avoid having any type of expectations or I at least try to lower my expectations to be realistic. With low or no expectations, then either your expectations are met or you get better than what you expected. Win-win situation. With high expectations usually comes disappointment. And one of my least favorite things is disappointment.

Some people have such high hopes and expectations that they can't be reached. And people are surprised when they can't accomplish things they want to. Setting the bar too high isn't good.

"Experience has taught me that interest begets expectation, and expectation begets disappointment, so the key to avoiding disappointment is to avoid interest."

The Bachelor / Bachelorette

First off, I'm not sure how I got started watching this show, but I did. It's not a show I would think I'd watch, but I just do because... I do. Can't really explain it. It's not even that I like it that much.

(From now on I'm just going to talk about the Bachelor because I don't want to have to keep tying him/her and stuff like that.)

I don't understand how going on this show is supposed to let you find your "one". As far as I know, the Bachelor does not pick who is going to come and compete to win him over. So if you have other people going through the applications of the people who want to go on the show, how can you know your “one” is someone that walks out of the limo to meet you? And the girls that are chosen don't even know who they're applying to go meet. They don't know who the Bachelor is until they step out of the limo in front of the huge mansion they are to live in. Plus, for the sake of having good television, the people they pick out to try and win over the Bachelor are always pretty. Nobody wants to see ugly people on TV.

The whole thing I have against the show is that anyone can fall in love when put in the right environment. If you spend time in a romantic place like Hawaii doing romantic things, than obviously you're going to fall faster than if it's a normal take it slow relationship. Heck, if a guy took me to a bunch of romantic places all the time I can almost guarantee I'd fall for him. Put pretty much anyone in the right environment and they'll fall in love in less time than Lindsay Lohan has spent in jail/rehab (sorry, lame similie). After watching all the episodes I've watched, I know that it almost always ends in heartbreak for everyone eventually. I don't have a statistic here, but I'm pretty sure a lot of the couples that end up together don't stay together. Not saying that it's a majority or anything, but still. And the things people do on national television. Crazy catfights all the time on the Bachelor. One guy got a tattoo of a shield and a heart during the show to show the Bachelorette that he was completely serious about him saying he would "guard and protect" her heart. I swear that guy said that phrase 40 times an episode. Nothing says ultra-stalker creepy than a cheesy guy who gets a tattoo to show his cheesiness is as serious as cheese can be. Nobody likes fake cheese. Especially the Bachelorette who left the guy on a snowy mountain top after the date during which he showed her his tattoo. Maybe she just didn't like the colors?

The worst thing you can say about anyone on the show is not calling them a name or even spreading rumors, but to tell them that you think they're there "for the wrong reasons". And sadly the producers/people who pick the prospective love interests almost always have to pick someone who actually doesn't care (at least on the Bachelorette). I usually don't end up watching the Bachelorette because while there may be cute guys, it usually ends up that one is a complete jerk who just wants to get publicity for his wrestling career (reference to last season). He literally ran away from the Bachelorette when she found out that he had a girlfriend already and came on the show with a girlfriend. And watching the Bachelorette constantly cry her eyes out over another jerk is just sad. That's the main reason I don't watch it.

On the Bachelor, a lot of times it seems like the women fighting over the one man aren't really doing that. They're more competing with each other than trying to get the Bachelor. They get in fights because one person got more time with the Bachelor than they did and that is apparently grounds for a yelling match. It's somewhat understandable, but especially at the beginning when there are 30 people there, how much time can you really expect to get with him? Just one minute per person is 30 minutes. It's horrible how in the first episode the Bachelor has to get rid of 10 girls. He met them that day and sends them home after a few hours of a party during which he most likely had no chance to really get to meet them. So basically the 20 that get to stay are the one the Bachelor thinks looks the best. 

Overall though, the show is pretty immature. Especially the Bachelor. There's more drama with women obviously. With all the women constantly saying things like "how dare she kiss my man" and things like that, it gets really annoying. Maybe I just like to watch the show to see how stupid some people can be. It does make me laugh. Except for the girl who has vampire fangs on the current season of the Bachelor. She does not make me laugh. Okay just a little.

And then there’s the pressure of having to pick someone. If the Bachelor didn’t propose to someone they met say 2 months ago at the end of the show, it would leave disappointed fans. The producers of the show can’t let that happen because fans=money. Easy equation but complicated stuff. One season a Bachelor ended up not picking anyone and the whole world hated him. He had to go to therapy and everything. Personally I think he made a good choice. If he knew he didn’t want to marry either one of the women he had at the end, then by not choosing them he saved both them and him the trouble of going through a relationship he didn’t really want to be in. People say he led them on and things like that, but he pretty much has to for the show to be a show.

In the current season of the Bachelor it seems like all the women picked were ones who have gone through some sort of traumatic experience in their life. A few of them have had a dad that died somewhat recently, and one girl's fiancee died in a plane crash which I admit when she told the story I cried. This puts even more pressure on the Bachelor. How bad would you feel to dump someone who just told you about something so sad and they've just opened up to you?

This was a fun rant and I now realize I had a lot more to say about this show than I thought I did. I'm not even sure if I covered everything. The End.

La Burbuja

In a recent (well it was recent when I started this as a draft) episode of 30 Rock that I was watching, Liz was dating a cute doctor (I forget his name) and the topic of the episode was this sort of "bubble" around people who look good. When they went to get dinner, no matter how long the wait line, he would go up to the waitress and ask for the next table and they would give it to him. Liz played tennis against him and he was really horrible at it, but then people started asking him for lessons. Then, Liz chokes on food (which she does a lot), and the doctor didn't even know how to do the Heimlich for her. The point was that the people in the figurative "bubble" don't realize that they're actually bad at things and everyone else just goes with the flow. I know 30 Rock makes everything dramatic, but isn't this true? People that are thought of to be "pretty" are treated differently in our society which is wrong, because there's always more than meets the eye.

It's human nature to base our views of people on what we can see, and because we can't see what's inside of people unless we have X-Ray vision, we focus just on how people look. We can't help that our first impression of someone is based on how they look. It's ironic that we get our first impression this way and you can be so very wrong about that person, although sometimes you are proven right. And when you never really talk to someone, your first impression and observations of them are all you have to judge them by. We may try to not base what we first think of someone on what we see, but we can't help it. We like to focus on aesthetics and what we can actually see.

"Reality is reality, whether you accept the bare facts or not"

✿Why'd you have to go and make things so complicated?✿

"When you complicate, you are left behind"   -Symmetry by Falling Up

Sadly this is true. When you just complicate someone's life, odds are they don't really want you to be there. People like uncomplicating people who can just be there and someone they can just have fun with. This is especially true in the beginning stages of a relationship. Most likely if you're bringing a lot of problems with you when you meet them, people won't want to deal with it. This is horrible because it's those people that need to have people around them the most. I'm not saying this is true of all people to be like this, but in general humans don't like to hang out with sad people or ones that are always complaining. I generally follow this trend too even though I agree that it's not a good one. Even though I'm someone who likes to help people with problems, I'm not so willing to deal with problems that people I hardly know have. And right when I meet someone I don't like if all they talk about is their problems and don't want to listen to you. Don't get me wrong I know people need to talk about things but once they've said their problems two billion times (literally of course) it gets annoying. But when you're close to someone and have known them for a long time and they are complicating your life, you deal with it because it's worth staying with them.

This is the same factor that plays in with the saying that you know who your true friends are because they stick with you no matter what. The best friends are the ones who stick with you "through thick and thin" yadda yadda you know the gist of it. When you have baggage (not the kind you pick up at the baggage claim in the airport), the people who stay with you are the ones that feel close to you. Normally people don't want to hear your drama unless they're close to you. We'd rather watch people on TV go through drama, that's why there are so many drama shows.

I totally need a cool sign-off, but seeing as I can't even think of post titles...

The End.