I'm totally hooked on HGTV's House Hunters - especially House Hunters International.

I adore seeing what average or above-average homes look like around the world, especially in Europe.  One of my favorite episodes ever was when the show followed a couple looking to buy an apartment in Stockholm, Sweden.  My dad was born in Sweden, so I always like seeing what life is like there.  Additionally, the buyers were a same-sex couple and I really appreciate that the show includes a variety of families.

But this weekend I found myself enthralled, yet sick with envy watching an episode of House Hunters International following a couple who was looking to buy an apartment . . . in Paris.

I studied French from the fifth grade through my freshman year of college.   I dreamed of going to Paris since I first learned about it; and, finally, I spent a week there at a writing workshop in 2004.  It was an incredibly magnificent week and I've dreamed of going back to Paris ever since.

The Paris episode of House Hunters International was sweet torture.  Everything looked familiar and spectacular - and I couldn't believe this young couple was lucky enough to be buying an apartment in Paris (and then getting married at a chateau outside Paris a few months later).  I could just die of envy.

Yet, I keep watching.  If that episode comes on again, I will watch it again - and again, and again.

Are there any shows that you watch despite how utterly green with envy they make you?

20/20 recently did an expose of the Bachelor TV series.  One of the key nuggets of information that was revealed was that the majority of the Bachelors have sex with three of the women on the show and that, apparently, Bob Guiney is the record holder, having slept with five women during the course of his season.

I sent my sister an email about this since, with two little ones, I was sure she was too busy to see the show or read about it online but tends to watch The Bachelor fairly faithfully (I gave up on it a few years ago).  My email to her read along the lines of, "Ew, I didn't want to think that!"

It's not about slut-shaming.  Not at all.  Everyone is free to sleep with whomever and however many they want.  Drop trou whenever you'd like, fine by me.  But the show sets up this romantic environment and everything seems so chaste.  Plus, he's "dating" 20+ other women, to start at least.  Even if it's only "five" - I have a hard time imagining I would want to have sex with someone who is dating three or four other women on national television.  (This also isn't meant to disparage poly relationships or those who agree this is fine.  I'm pretty sure none of the Bachelors ask the women if it's okay if they have sex with a couple of the other participants.)

So my sister writes back that she and her husband always argue about this: she always said she didn't think they slept with anyone and her husband always says they definitely sleep with several people.  I told her the hubby tells me the same thing - that I'm crazy if I think they're not sleeping with several of the women.

The hubby calls it "The Bubble" - the world I live in where things are pleasant and people mean well and are nice to each other. 

I don't think a bubble city looks that bad.
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Sometimes he means it in reference to the actual world I inhabit - I tend to be lucky and know some very nice people - and sometimes he means it in reference to how my mind thinks the rest of the world is based on my personal experience with said nice people.

So my sister said that our husbands, as men, have some insight into the men on the show and that we're just naive.  This got me to thinking: this is pretty much the premise of the show.  Each of those women is in her own bubble, entirely certain that she is "The One" for this guy she only just met.  She might just think, "This is all so romantic and beautiful.  And he's so special to me when we're alone.  I have to be the only one he cares about."  The show succeeds because the women fall into the same trap that the viewers do: trusting the Bachelor and the producers not to toy with their emotions.  Shame on them and shame on us.  (You know, fool me once... fourteen seasons later...)

I didn't watch the 20/20 special so I don't know if they gave the same coverage to the Bachelorettes.  Did they question the producers about how many men the Bachelorettes slept with?  Ordinarily it seems like the focus would be on how many men the women slept with - the media is far more into slut-shaming women than men - but I think what happens here is that they don't want the men to seem like the fools.  If they didn't give equal time to the women's exploits, I would guess it's because they didn't know how to frame the narrative of "the wronged man."  We've seen the bitter, wronged woman enough to spot her a mile away.

I'm glad that there seems to be at least one happy marriage from this series (Trista and Ryan, who now have two kids) - and possibly a second one (Jason and Molly).  So all of this is not for naught, but I'm not sure four happy people outweigh the now hundreds of unhappy former participants.  That's definitely no bubble.

PS - Check out what I'm stirring up in my latest post at WeAreTheRealDeal.  Wanting TMZ not to be snide about size acceptance turned into a debate about health and responsibility.