Living In Reality 5/30

The Real World: Sins of the Flesh

Averey and Johnny:

Fight number #354 between these two lovebirds occurred at where else? The bar. This time, Johnny got pissed because Averey was talking to another guy for an hour-and-a-half. He berated her all the way from the bar back to the house, leaving Averey in tears as she felt she did nothing wrong nor anything previously to make Johnny not trust her.

Johnny probably overreacted, but Averey getting friendly with another guy for 90 minutes seems excessive on her part. She may be a naturally flirty girl, but you can go too far with it. Notice how when Johnny questioned how Averey would react if the roles were reversed, she basically gave a non-answer.

Flirting with other people is definitely a tricky subject with couples. Most of it depends on the people involved. Johnny admitted that jealousy is one of his worst traits. Add some alcohol into the mix, and you’ve got a recipe for a blow-up.

The other big topic involving this couple was Averey floating around the idea of moving to Boston with Johnny. She referenced a previous relationship when she traveled 3,000 miles to live with a boyfriend, only to watch the relationship end up falling apart. So Averey does have some apprehension about making another huge leap of faith that may or may not work out.

Like many young couples, Johnny and Averey have drunken fights, only to easily make up the next day. Wash, rinse, repeat. In this instance, they re-bonded while taking part in some type of overnight zombie survival camp of all things.

Jessica and Tyler:

Jessica was beginning to put a lot more energy into this relationship, even telling Tyler on the phone that she was thinking about staying in Portland to be with him. On the other end of the line, Tyler sounded suspiciously unenthusiastic about the idea, leading Jessica to wonder what was wrong with him.

As it turned out, Tyler was about ready to drop a bomb on the relationship, sending a break-up letter to Jessica by way of an email (never a good approach, by the way). Tyler seemed like a really good guy who was willing to be patient with Jessica, so this abrupt 180 truly came out of left field.

Then again, maybe something about Jessica scared him off. She can come across as clingy. After knowing him for a couple months at best, Jessica had pictures of the happy couple strewn all over her room. She even gave Tyler a keychain with a picture of the two! The fact that Jessica was willing to move all the way back to Portland after such a short time may have been too forward for Mark.

Like Averey, Jessica mentioned previous bad outcomes with men, to the point where she claims to hate men a lot more than she lets on. But, she also gets extremely invested in a relationship when she feels comfortable enough. I was surprised she didn’t  take the breakup harder than she actually did.

Marlon and his father:

Marlon is having a difficult time juggling his faith and having a sexually-active lifestyle. Much of his faith comes from his father, who is a preacher that raised Marlon on his own. He succumbs to temptation by taking a girl home from the bar and eventually doing the deed with her. Afterwards, Marlon gets really down on himself.

I went to Catholic schools my entire youth, and knew many young people of Catholic faith or some other type of religion. Believe me, a lot of them have pre-marital sex. Not to veer too far of course, but it becomes a sliding scale of sorts where a lot of religious people can simply shrug off something like telling a white lie, swearing, or having sex before marriage as not a big deal.

But with Marlon, you could tell that this issue was legitimately eating him up inside. He felt conflicted between the pleasure of sex and the pain of letting down his father. He and Jessica went together to church to gain some clarity on their respective issues. Marlon in particular became emotional as he felt the preacher was speaking to him personally.

Marlon has yet to tell his father about his latest slip-up. As far as I know, he hasn’t told him about having sex with a guy previously either, which is definitely a bigger issue. Considering this is, in fact, a TV show, Marlon’s father is going to become privy to all this stuff eventually.

Anastasia and Mark:

Just a bit of residual clean-up from the previous episode. Mark wrote a letter to Ana expressing his angst about them being so far apart. Ana called her mother on the phone to complain about Mark not being able to handle problems. The long-term prospects of this relationship sure look promising, don’t they?

Next week on The Real World: A HUGE FIGHT!!!

Photo credit: MTV