Living Happily Ever After
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Blog Articles

The Small World of Television

Date: April 17, 2012  Author: Andrea Merriman

“Television is intensely personal.” (Jessica Savitch)

The very next day I was chatting with a different co-worker new to my company who gathered from our conversation that I was divorced. She asked about my previous husband, where he lives now and whether or not my children ever see him. “No, they don’t see him,” I replied.

“Really? Not at all? Why not?” she asked.

“Because he’s in prison,” I clarified. “Until 2020.”

With information like that offered up, there are always a few follow-up questions! (Which I’m  happy to answer.) After more questions and some additional explanation, a light came on in my co-worker’s eyes. “Oh! I have a great idea! I know what you need to do!” she exclaimed. “There’s a television show that would be perfect for you!” She told me a about it, including its title and that it’s her favorite show, and I started laughing.

“What’s so funny?” she asked.

“That’s the very show that I’m talking to about appearing on!” I explained.

Two different people, two days in a row, same television show. And me.

Small world.

The Conversation

Date: August 30, 2010  Author: Andrea Merriman

Right about that time a co-worker, my age and also a single mother, asked me about the men in my life. She checked in with me periodically about how things were going in my unexpected and single life, and although I gave her the 411, she wanted to know more about Bachelor #5. She said, “Of everyone I’ve heard you mention, Bachelor #5 is by far the most appealing to ME. I don’t understand–what’s your issue with him?” (I think I heard echoes of other co-workers saying the same thing in the background as they kept an ear on our conversation!)

I launched into my usual explanation that he was very nice but “older,” he had gray hair, he was a grandpa (ie. too old), but she stopped me. Those were shallow excuses. She wanted to know the real reason. I thought for a minute and said, “I think my problem with him is that we are too much alike and have too much in common.”

She looked at me like I was absolutely crazy. A complete idiot. And asked, “How can you have too much in common with someone? And why WOULDN’T you want to have so much in common with someone? Why is that a problem?”
Then she opened my eyes to the benefits of having a lot in common with a man as she shared her experience of being in a relationship with a man she had everything in common with, her soul mate.

I’d been very different from my first husband; we had very little in common except our faith. But I’d been happy, had loved him, and had probably come to believe over the course of our 20-year marriage that it was our differences that made him so appealing to me and kept me interested in him for so long. (It certainly kept our conversations lively and very educational!)

Talking to my co-worker, I began to open my mind to something I’d never considered before. I started to take note about what it was like to have a lot in common with a man I dated. I decided to observe, take notice, see what it was really like, and what I really thought about spending time with someone I had a lot in common with. (And can you believe it only took me four months of knowing him to get to that point? Sometimes I can be incredibly clueless.)

“Did you have an epiphany? Is that why you waited so long?” (Mark Geragos)