The Desperate Housewives

I've gotten completely lost in the rabbit hole that is the psyche of the Real Housewives. There's so much to keep me going: the episodes, the recaps, the previews, the bios... and THE BLOGS! They have their own blogs? They can write?

All that backstabbing, bitching, catfighting, gossiping and outlandish oneupmanship is every bit as scary and pathetic as it is intriguing and fascinating. Has all that Botox somehow regressed them to the maturity level of that 16-year-old they're trying to look like? Or have all those hair-extensions sucked the last of the brain cells out of their heads?

I'll leave the whole America's Next Role Model- competition to the likes of Oprah and Mother Theresa but these women are supposed to be strong, successful, confident and wealthy individuals! Yet their desperate attempts to outmanoeuvre, outdress and outclass each other instantly take you back to the 5th grade and they way we all were so terribly lost with ourselves. The pimples, the braces, the gangly legs, the growth spurts, the fear of sticking out for all the wrong reasons (any reasons really), the desperate need to fit in... Best friends with someone one week and the worst enemies the next. Dying to be cool enough for the cool kids.

Eventually we all learn to manoeuvre those legs and get used to the new shapes and even our faces grow into the nose we grew up hating but don't we girls EVER grow out of that? 

What I find most peculiar is the desperate quest for something these women think is "class". Especially in Real Housewives of New York a.k.a. Count(l)ess LuAnn vs. the world. She is so busy pointing out how she's better than the rest that she seems to have completely forgotten her not-so-noble origins. Erm... the woman is no countess. The title is  just one of the many things she lost after her philandering ex-husband (an actual Count) traded her (the wife no 4) in for a younger model. And I'm sorry, what kind of name is LuAnn?! People with wifebeaters, trailers and welfare come to mind...

Ok, that was a bit mean. But that's the only appropriate approach to these real life mean girls. Class, I believe,  is one of those things that don't necessarily come with title (real or not) or money (old or new). It's not defined by the size of your house in the Hamptons and it doesn't depend on the carat-count of your ring. But it's definitely something you either have or you don't. And if you do, it's something others notice too. The more you feel the need to rub it all over the faces of everyone around you...the less likely it is that you'd even know how to spell it. And choosing to appear on reality TV... crass, yes. Class... Absolument no.