Melissa, I Feel Your Pain :(

It was a rather sunny, pleasant afternoon in the summer of my, oh, sixteenth year, I suppose. Of course, since I was in Kansas, it was no doubt hotter than a grill at the family barbecue and miserable, but a young man in love never notices things like that. I was on my way to visit my then-first romance, and life was grand (so how much of a geek WAS I to use words like "grand"?). Little did I know that the storm clouds of rejection were about to rear their distasteful visage and rain like hell all over my parade.
In brief: I walked into her house, and her mother (who never really liked me) gave me a very odd look, which of course, was standard. Her older sister (who thought I was cute in a geeky kind of way) laughed out loud when I walked in, and her father (who worked with my dad and probably reported the whole episode for yucks) merely shook his head sadly. Undaunted, I walked into the living room, where the "hi, nice to see you..." trailed off into a strangled sort of gurgle. I was expecting to find the girl of my boyhood dreams, and I did, sort of. She was there, smiling a bit awkwardly as she held hands with some college kid on the sofa. Seriously...everything went red, I got really hot and thought I would fall over imminently, and I think I probably forgot to breathe for about ten minutes. The rest of the story (in deference to Paul Harvey who recently died) is too grim to recount. Things eventually turned around, of course, and I found a girl who liked me more than the college guys she knew, and the rest is history. Why am I disclosing this? Empathy for Melissa.
In case you missed it (as I did because I didn't care), the latest season of The Bachelor ended yesterday, and the way it ended has bloggers and call-in respondents livid.
Our bachelor, Jason Mesnick, decided after all was said and done that Melissa was the girl for him, and the engagement was complete: happy ever after, etc. yada yada.
HOWEVER, last night ON TV, Jason dumped Melissa for the runner-up, Molly! Apparently, Melissa did not take the rejection well. There was some name calling and ugliness involved on both parts. Adding insult to injury, Jason then proceeds to "explore dental work" with Molly and send viewers into the same dizzying tizzy that I must have felt all those years ago. Molly, of course, called it a dream come true...just how dumb is she? Any clown who would proceed as Jason did will not last long with her, either.
Mind you, I'm not even mildly interested in what happens, but the parallel was simply too strong to go unnoticed.
At least I got dumped in front of family and not an entire television viewing audience.
The latest word from Jason? His bosses at ABC "made" him dump his first choice to enhance ratings.
If you are interested, you've probably already watched it, but if not, ABC.com is supposedly streaming it on the 'net.
I won't be watching.