The Amazing Race and Marriage

This is so outdated it’s not even funny (SN. I’ve always hated this phrase. “Not even funny”. What’s that mean? If it was just a bit less extreme then it would be funny? Things that are not funny are inherently hyperbolic? I don’t get it.

SSN. Another thing that makes no sense to me: the lyrics to Gwen Stefani’s Rich Girl. Every time I hear it I go bonkers. The lyrics include “If I was a rich girl, na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na, see, I’d have all the money in the world, if I was a wealthy girl.”

Someone explain these lyrics to me. I think it’s the “see” part that enrages me. As if she’s explaining something to us. Thing is, taken at face value, it’s not even true. If she was rich/wealthy, she *wouldn’t* necessarily have all the money in the world. She’d just have a lot of money. If it’s meant to be symbolic, then it’s *obvious*, definitionally true. Rich people by definition have a lot of money. So why is she telling us to “see” that she’d have money if she were rich? Huh? Rage. When I record my parody album, I’m doing this song, with lyrics “If I was a green man, na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na, see, green would be the color of my skin, if I was a green man.”)

So yeah, it happened months ago, but I think the most recent season of The Amazing Race should be required viewing for married couples. Reason being, the show makes it really clear which qualities make a partnership work and which don’t. Doesn’t matter if they’re married, friends, straight, gay, family, Christian, or whatever. The qualities of the good teams were the same. And I think you can draw marriage principles from it.

I’ve long believed that the truest mark of your character isn’t how you behave in comfortable situations with lots of preparation, but what you do under pressure, in the spur of the moment, under fire. I’m not exactly sure why I feel this way, but I do. I feel like the show reveals the true nature of relationships, as they’re under pressure and fire.

Anyway, some things I feel like I learned:

• Don’t dwell on past mistakes. This was, I think, the single greatest distinguishing characteristic between the good and bad teams. Every team made mistakes. But the bad teams dwelled on them. Each person would continually get down on the other for the mistakes they made, saying stuff like, if you hadn’t done this and that, we wouldn’t be in this situation. Over and over, they would not let mistakes go. The good teams never did this. No matter what happened, they left mistakes in the past and focused on the future.
• Always be supportive. Good teams were always encouraging each other, no matter what mistakes they had made, or how hopeless things seemed. They focused on what they could do then, stayed positive, and let the other member know that they could do it. Bad teams always got pissed at each other for not doing tasks as well as they thought they should. They got negative when they were in a bad situation, and they talked what they couldn’t do instead of what they could.
• Trust each other. Good teams knew how to trust the other person. True trust, without second-guessing each other. Bad teams *constantly* second-guessed each other, questioned why or how the other member was doing what they were doing. Can’t be a team without trust.
• Don’t be sarcastic. Pretty self-explanatory. But good teams weren’t sarcastic, at least to each other, at all. Bad teams were.

Those are just some of them. I dunno, I came away from the series thinking, I know how to be a better husband. I suck at those things, but it let me know what I need to work on. Maybe that’s why it struck me so much.