Behind the Scenes of Dating in the Dark

Note to self: Never use the word “Oomph” ever again.

Last night, surrounded by a dozen friends, I watched myself attempt to date on national television while my comrades created a drinking game in my honor. If I say “hot,” you drink. If I laugh at myself, you drink twice. And if I say something embarrassingly quotable, a la: “It just didn’t seem like he had the oomph. I’m a lot of oomph and I don’t need somebody to match my oomph but I need him to be able to handle my oomph and I think I might be too oomphy for him,” you pound and then chant “Soup, Soup, Soup, Soup, Soup” in hopes that somewhere out there Joel McHale is listening and, with any luck, by the end of the week, I might be enshrined alongside Spaghetti Cat thanks to my appearance on the unexpected ABC breakout Dating in the Dark.

Trust me, no one in the world is more surprised that the show is a success than I am. In fact, I don’t think I really believed the events surrounding last night’s episode would ever see the light of day. Perhaps that’s why I was blithely naive enough to agree to take part in a televised dalliance into the world of dating and announce to the world, “Yup, I’m single” and leave myself open to the obvious backlash of anonymous hecklers replying, “And we can see why.”

Dating is brutal, but dating for television is an exercise in psychological warfare. My only comfort is the knowledge that reality TV is the fastest evaporating substance on the planet.

You know that feeling you have when you hear your voice on someone else’s answering machine? Take that and multiply it by about seven million, since that’s around how many people witnessed all of my “Oh my God! Did I just do/say that?” moments last night.

But enough about the burning shame that I brought upon myself, let’s get down to the good stuff. Here are a few inside truths about what REALLY happened when we filmed Dating in the Dark.

First, Jenn, though coveted by the end of the show, wasn’t picked to go on a date after the group set up. Megan and I both picked Billy Ray for our first dates. Chris picked Megan, Jenn picked Chris and Phil choose me, apparently because he thought I was the black girl in the house. That’s why all the guys looked so shocked when Chris announced I was “a redhead.” Chris had sketches drawn of what he thought we’d looked like and my drawing was the spitting image of Tyra Banks. Megan and I laughed so hard the producers started yelling at us to get back in check.

That’s another thing. They played up the female backstabbing, but we all got along famously. There was no cattiness, not even when Jenn announced that Chris had licked whipped cream off of the top of her ass crack. Because the middle might be too intimate.  That was what she meant when she said they got “creative” in the dark room.

While he bullsh-ted about “Trust worthiness and honesty” being his best features, her response was that her rump was her best, excuse the pun, asset and invited him to sample the goods. All that was missing was a cherry on top.

But I guess salad tossing wasn’t exactly family friendly enough for ABC, although they had no problem showing Chris and I sucking face. Later he complained about my “sexual aggressiveness” but in the room, he kept telling me that I was a great kisser and pulling me back for more. And I let him. After all, if you’re going to make a fool of yourself on national television, go for the gusto! Suck face, bite lips and lick whipped cream off coinslots. Why not?

We lived in that house for three days and there were far more dates and antics than forty-four minutes of primetime could ever showcase, especially when we were recorded 24/7 in all rooms of the house except the bathroom. But a large part of me feels like they edited out some of the best stuff to make the storylines clichéd enough to entertain without illumination. Or maybe that’s the essence of dating; you boil yourself down to the simplest, most easily digestible elements, throw them to your suitors and see if you get a nibble. Or, if you’re lucky, a whip-cream topped lick.

Now that is oomphy.

—Sasha Perl-Raver