What? I didn't fall in love with a millionaire?!

I think I started being oh so famous when Justin Timberlake called me up and wanted me to be oh his highly rated show “The Phone.” And since he is just such an old, dear friend of mine (The No Strings Attached album had a lot of inner workings from yours truly) I decided I would help him out. I was really busy walking other people’s dogs, eating strangers leftover pizza sticks at a really hip restaurant, teaching the youth how to braid with string and selling most of my possessions on the Ebay, but I knew he needed me for the ratings. So what did I do? I came through. He promised to serenade me and my hubby with “This I promise you” at our wedding in exchange for my time (if something like this were to ever take place.) So after taking down the mob and saving the innocent lives of the citizens of Boston (You can thank me later guys!) I walked away with 20 grand and split half of it with my partner. I know, I know, how much more charitable could I get? Seriously, I knew I gave the money to the right person when I saw him spin out in his red Mustang after the show was finished shooting. So since then I feel like I need to help more reality shows achieve such a status as “The Phone” did. “The Bachelor” didn’t need my services, because they needed to make the show fair for the other women and “The Real World” was sooo 1992. I then set my sights on “The Millionaire Matchmaker” because who doesn’t enjoy being whisked away to the French Rivera for a date by a middle aged bald man. I do stuff like that with my dad’s friends all the time. The things I will do for a free meal really scare me sometimes.. but I digress…

I love going to castings like this because people don’t realize what stance I am taking on the whole experience. Like most things in my life, I don’t take reality TV that seriously and if [GASP] I don’t get chosen to continue on this creative path to low brow television, I will not lose sleep, unless there was free coffee at the actually casting. If it’s free I will come and overindulge in it as well.

So I find it rather alarming that women will come out in droves to be insulted by a heavyset Matchmaker from New Jersey and not be able to emotionally handle it. If Patti Stanger told me that I needed to fix something with my appearance or that I am too young to date her 40 year old, cat loving millionaire I would be the first one to agree. The first thing I planned to do when I got on that show was to ask this millionaire, whoever he may be, why he needs a matchmaking service to find him a lady? Isn’t that the first red flag? There are five girls to every guy in Manhattan and I could point out five that would go home with you the first night, either in my office or the place I frequent for lunch. I don’t need to find a rich date or a matchmaking mentor and neither do most other New Yorkers, I just think it would be something interesting to add to my list…. and did I mention how I feel about free food?

But god love the fucking people who show up to these things. I bought a black and gray ruffled dress that I left the tags on and returned to Express the next day. Back on the shelf along with all the other sequins and tight skirts overpriced and poorly made, yet something I still bought and then had the audacity to return. I switch from flip flops to heels in the elevator and do a full sprint into a room full of 20 girls in tight black dresses and a table with double that in Subway sandwiches. I mumble something about “Eating Fresh” and realize this is going to be a hard group to break until everyone checks everyone out and starts feeling more comfortable about themselves. The "She may be skinnier BUT my boobs are bigger" or "She has great hair but look at that cellulite on her thighs" thoughts sink in and girls start addressing their neighbor. First it’s about the real things in life, OhMyGawd, “your shoes are so cute’s” Start flying around and no one seems to notice that they can’t possible like everyone’s shoes, they have to be lying about at least one pair. I even got a, “I love her shoes? Don’t you?” Now I feel like I need to make a decision, whose shoes do I really love? Such big decisions and a millionaire hasn’t even been decided on yet! Then they move to “You are so tiny! Much tinier than me!” “ We have double zeros at my store, you should come in!” The double zero, gasp, may only be a singular zero and she pretends to blush and insists she isn’t that small, and said girl is actually much smaller. One girl turns to me and asks who is in fact tinier. I don’t know what gives me the authority to decide but I mumble that they are in fact both tiny and turn my attention to play Brick breaker on my BlackBerry. I immediately judge them and tell myself my high score on Brick breaker will outshine anything they have ever done in their stupid double zero lives. Then comes the exchanging of astrological signs and what they say about you, favorite designers and who has free entrances/tickets to metro area clubs or the newest in the Twilight saga. I scarf down two 6 inch subs during this time frame and try to read the height and weight the others put down on their info sheets. I decide some are lying and commend myself for my honesty on writing 140 (yikes! How did it get this bad?), even though at 5"7, I probably weigh more than that. I find some names on the sheets too and while they are discussing bartending licenses and agents, I Google them. Samantha Sparx (what a convenient last name she was blessed with!) has a bigger forehead than me (rare) but she’s a model for a no name catalog and works at the AMC in Times Square, that is why she has free Twilight tickets and is making friends easily. Shoday is from Staten Island, works at FAO Swarts 3 days a week and calls herself a fashionista because she has been bleaching and cutting her jeans since she was 12. (she is ahead of the times.) Becky, the girl next to me, starts a conversation about WeightWatchers and her new dog, she graduated this past May and lives at home with her parents. Her sister met her recent husband on Match.com and she seemed quite sincere about really meeting a guy. I liked her and started to picture us going to the beach near her home in Long Island because when I rarely meet girls I like, I instantly imagine our nonexistent friendship together. Very sad.

Some girls started to go up and get sandwiches, I decided that these were the girls that I would talk to. Two Russian girls with accents and plaid outfits sit down. They have a worse fashion sense than me, so I think we can be best friends for a few hours. I ask them if they had ever seen the show, can’t understand their answer, smile and turn back around. We are then told by a producer to say in our interview with that matchmaker that we LOVE animals no matter what. I give my spiel about how I work in TV and I know how this all works. The more dramatic you can be the better chance you have to make it on camera. They don’t understand that these 4 hours of filming are going to be condensed into 6 minutes of the overall 21-23 minute show, after commercials. A girl bends over to pick up a broken nail, I see she is a fan of a certain wax. I telepathically commend her on going through the pain but don’t necessarily appreciate knowing something so intimate about her.

We are herded into a room where Patti can give us a speech about how we should act to obtain the “right man.” She asks the women eh hem, young ladies how many dates they should go on before they sleep with someone. One girl answers 5 and the number dwindles down from there. “I usually sleep with them the first date if I like them,” exclaims one scantily clad girl with bright red hair and disproportioned eyebrows. This sends poor Patti into a conniption fit where she shoves her engagement ring (she has since called it off) in these lifeless girls faces and tells them they “WILL NEVER GET ONE OF THESE” if they don’t clean up their act. “You will know when a real man gives you a real diamond!” Emphasize on “real” – thank you Patti. I have learned so much from your “Who is going to buy the cow if you can get the milk for free?” mentality. Last time I checked anyone who had a mother that gave a shit about them and their lady parts told them this exact same thing before they had breast buds.

After Patti pops a Xanax and calms the fuck down, we are divided into groups of three to be picked apart by her and her mohawked and badly styled minions. This is no exaggeration by any means, since she actually relies on these gothic gone seriously wrong people to help her match suitors for her company. (Which we are told, she takes “very seriously” several times over) This is to block out any thought that this perhaps was all put on for the sake of the show. This is a real business here you naysayers!

The “models,” “actresses,” waitresses and bartenders were herded in like cattle for this round of gold digging and then I find a self proclaimed “stunt woman” in the mix of these generic professions. I am startlingly impressed and secretly hope the job I am over exaggerating makes me look equally as cool. Major fail on my part and she’s the first one to volunteer to go up on the chopping block.

Every threesome comes out with a story… One girl had to get her ID because Patti insisted she was lying about her age, one was too fat for Patti’s liking, one too skinny, one dresses too frumpy, one dresses too sexy and just when I thought I couldn’t take it anymore, one girl was told she had bad teeth and I held her in my arms for a mere 30 seconds before I realized that her teeth may actually fall out on my lap. Touche Patti, touché.

My own threesome consisted of me and my soon to be returned dress, a 5”11 blonde 20 year old model and an attractive 5”3, 32 year old construction manager who, upon immediate arrival poured out her eagerness to be married with 2.3 children in the next year. I was asked if I was Jewish, would I date someone old enough to have fathered me and do I like animals? I wondered if these are some usual questions you would find on online dating sites, but before I could answer, The mohawked wingman told Patty I look too young for this mysterious “David.” Pish posh, It must be the ruffles on this dress! Patty insisted she would save my measurements and other extremely qualified information held on 5 stapled pieces of paper in her hand for another, younger, millionaire. The South of France will have to wait to be graced with my reality TV star presence. But with just my luck, my date with this “David” character would have resulted in us going to Medieval Times in New Jersey. If you watched the show you would know that this already happened people!

But I would call this reality casting a success overall since I was forced to stay there a full hour after I was dismissed by Patty and her colorful minions. The “chosen ones” gathered in a corner and discussed what they were going to wear for the next day’s mixer. One girl came over and pitifully put her arm around me. It was all she could muster to tell me that it was going to be alright in her best “better luck next time” voice. Thank god she was there holding me together. But the real gem that came from this conversation was when she slipped me her personal escort card and whispered, “I’m not really a bartender per say. Don’t tell anyone.” AND THAT ONE ADMISSION, WAS THE REASON WHY I GO TO THESE THINGS.