Morning Run on the Veneto

I left for my morning run along a canal in Padova at about 6:40 this morning, after passing a short night. My body, it seems, is still adjusting to the time change. The sun doesn't rise until between quarter to eight and eight and it was cloudy and misty this morning and the run was covered in a darkness that was broken, thankfully, by the lights along one of Padova's well-maintained bike paths. I met few people on the first half of this out-and-back, encountered a few more (on bikes, on foot, with dogs) on the way back. Padova's on a coastal plain and is extremely flat.

The rest of the day was spent writing a dissertation chapter, the evening watching youtube clips of the Bachelor, season 15, featuring second-time contestant Brad Womack. The Bachelor resonated in a few strange ways with my dissertation reading. A little background: Womack is infamous for being the only bachelor ever to turn down each of the bachelorettes. He walked away from his season mateless. Now three years later he's back on the show, after undergoing intense therapy. His first season on the show, we're told, was symptomatic of an inability to commit, which was symptomatic of trust issues, etc. He's worked it all out in therapy.

What's so interesting is how the storyline of the show now relies on a redemption narrative made possible by turning Brad's failure to find in any single one of those usually vacuous bachelorettes a soulmate, or even a suitable partner. My question is whether Brad really wants to be treated for an inability commit--that's a psychological problem?--or whether he just didn't connect with any of the people on the show, and is (like we all are) a stranger to his own desires. The really sad part of the show is not that he broke those women's hearts three years ago, but that this season we watching a man's life be normalized to the standards of a TV show hosted by Chris Harrison.