20030830

An idea of mine stolen yet again
Date Patrol is coming to TLC. I wouldn't have noticed it except that Barbaloot enjoys watching Trading Spaces, hosted by Paige Davis, and, well, she's hot. So I was half-watching Paige---er, Trading Spaces with her, and what did they announce but the continuing theft of another of my ideas.

Anyway, if dating is an acquired skill set clearly some will acquire it better than others, and some will never get it without some formal coaching. TLC Network agrees with me, at least enough to give it a try as oxymoronic "reality television." It will not carry the baggage of a school operated by a distillery or a university.

To the show's producers' credit, it appears they will be examining and finishing "her" skills as well. That will make the show more interesting to us guys. But a pitfall awaits: the date arranged between the two of them is far less likely to fail, and will offer much less educational value to its viewers, because the finishing teachers will be unconsciously guiding him and her together. That does not occur in the real world. Even arranged marriages are put together by people who couldn't give a rat's *ss whether he can strike up any chemistry with her.

A better test will come when the poor yub tries these newly-acquired skills on someone randomly chosen from the same pool that he would have chosen from if the TLC cameras had never shown up. But by then the cameras will be gone, and countless other poor yubs will not have the benefit of learning from his mistakes. And there will be mistakes.

Good luck. It's a jungle out there.

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