Real World Brooklyn: I Like You But Kinda Not Really

Welcome back to the Real World Brooklyn! I am delighted to report that we finally get some drama today! Three love triangles! Well, they’re not all triangles but that’s what I’m calling them cause it flows. Also, someone finally gets drunk and slutty. Not really slutty enough for my taste, but I’ll take what I can get.

Hmmmm. What rhymes with cramp ons?

We head over the bridge to Brooklyn, where Ryan and Baya are making goofy faces at each other. They’re so happy to have each other in the house. Because they get along so well, Baya explains. Ryan plays his Iraq songs and generally acts silly, like boys do when they like you, even though he doesn’t like Baya like that cause they’re just friends. Baya looks at him with big eyes and tells him how talented he is, but tells us that everyone’s a little charming when they play music. Then she tells Ryan he’s not in Iraq anymore so he doesn’t have to play such sad music all the time. Out of the first three minutes of today, I kind of like Baya.

This is the most depressing song I’ve ever heard in my life.

Of course the silly faces require a phone call to Ryan’s girl back home just to prove he’s still in love with her. He tells her how he wants to play music with a band. Girlfriend is refreshingly supportive. Ryan whines how hard it is to break in to the music business. Girlfriend is still refreshingly supportive. What happened to the days of Nathan and Stephanie and “I’m going to drop out of college if you don’t leave the Real World house and come home to me!”? I miss those days. Nice girlfriends make for boring television.

A career where you’ll be wasted every night hitting on random skanks and bringing in zero dollars and practicing in the garage with your loser friends? YAY let’s get married.

That night, or some night, the roomies head out to Angels & Kings, a bar on the Lower East Side owned by Fall Out Boy. MTV corporate synergy, hard at work. Ryan tells us that coincidentally, a lot of bands and managers of bands that play on MTV hang out there! How fortuitous! Let’s see what happens here. Why, not even ten minutes in the bar and Ryan’s chatting it up with Doug Newman, who just happens to manages bands. See how that works?

I go on reality shows and promise people the moon and then when the reality show ends I stop calling them back. What do you do?

Ryan has dressed the part of LES unemployed musician type in a plaid shirt and a plaid trucker hat. Everyone remembers how much I just loooooove trucker hats, right? Ryan sells his songs as “some of them are funny, some are comical”. Funny vs. comical. This is some pitch. Ryan also throws in the bit about Iraq. Odd, last week he was shy to tell anyone, now he’s tossing it around to strangers in bars. I guess people who can get you record deals probably have a unique perspective on war.

I have a lot of songs about shooting people. But I don’t like to talk about it. So I shot this dude once…

Baya sits by, pretending not to be Ryan’s girlfriend by nodding enthusiastically at everything he says. And wouldn’t you know it, Doug Newman knows plenty of people willing to work with new artists! Ryan tells us Doug is going to be like “a traffic cop in the music biz”. Then Baya throws in something about how she wants to dance in music videos. Can’t you totally picture her working it out behind Beyonce in the Single Ladies video?

Me neither.

Oh, and then Baya gets drunk and jumps on the bar and Ryan puts his arm around her because they only just like each other as friends, of course.

Back at the house, Katelynn is moping by the computer. Miss Thing Devyn, who we really haven’t seen much of so far, comes over for a little camera tim- I mean, to find out what’s wrong. The problem is Katelynn’s boyfriend, Mike. She doesn’t want to talk at first, but finally Dev pulls it out of her that since they’ve been in the Real World house, Mike hasn’t called, emailed or made any other attempt at contact. “Obviously, it bothers him that I’m not around,” Katelynn explains deliriously. Right, cause when you leave someone and they don’t want to know what you’re up to, that’s a sure sign that they’re just sitting home and missing you. Especially after they move out to Legends of the Fall country to escape you.

I lost the tracking signal I hid on his truck. Dammit. He’s probably just buying me flowers and doesn’t want me to know.

Anyway, Devyn’s a nice roommate and tells Katelynn she has to talk to Mike about this. But don’t you understand Devyn, they can’t talk. That’s just not how their relationship is, explains Katelynn. “Well, you better learn how to communicate or else you’re not going to have a relationship,” Devyn explains simply. No sugarcoating.

So Katelynn gets right on top of that communication thing and decides to call Mike the next day. She’s all fake cheerful, “Hey! Hey stranger!” And Mike’s got nothing. “There’s eight of us,” she tells him excitedly. Mike’s still got nothing. Well, they’ve never had a normal relationship, Katelynn finally admits. And then she faces facts, that Mike’s being distant and if he is thinking of her, he’s not letting her know. Very awkward. And then they hang up.

Now it’s time for Baya to pull Katelynn love life duty. They walk briskly, side by side on the treadmill and Baya is appropriately annoyed at bad boyfriend, Mike. Katelynn waxes on about how she wants a family and companionship. But it’s a new chapter, says Baya delightedly. There are no ties! And if Mike isn’t the guy for Katelynn, and in Baya’s perky-pookie-new-chapter-female-empowerment world, Mike most certainly is not, then “he doesn’t deserve you!” Baya concludes in her most you-go-girl! voice.

Aw I’m glad we talked. Wanna try to catch the ten o’ clock showing of He’s Just Not That Into You?

And onto the third romantic subplot of the evening, and that’s Devyn and Scotty. Their flirty tool is a chicken cutlet. “Look at the dead chicken,” says flirty girl Devyn. “I’ll slap you with this chicken,” flirty boy Scotty tosses back. Not-so-witty banter with chickens, do you see what we’re reduced to? Devyn tells us that she’s attracted to Scotty, and yes totally it’s a schoolgirl thing. “Any girl would fall for him,” Devyn explains, “He’s attractive and such a genuine sweetheart.” See, not her fault.

Scotty tells us he’s just flirty with everyone. Cut to Devyn lounging in bed with Sarah, making bets on how while Scotty is indeed a flirt, the way he flirts with Dev of course, actually, means something. Sarah predicts that within the next thirty days, Scotty will be making a confession to someone else in the house “admitting his admiration” for Devyn. Dev bets against her, while giggling and secretly praying that Sarah’s right.

And who can blame her?

And then we head back over the bridge to Manhattan. The City. Ryan, Chet and Baya are headed to Crush Management, courtesy of the music industry traffic cop they happened to randomly run into at the bar, Doug Newman. And Doug’s the man! Not only is he willing to help Ryan with the music career, he’s also going to get Chet a gig hosting on some website, doing video blogging and artist interviews. They even scare up someone so desperate for Real World screen time that they offer to teach white bread Baya to “spin”. When she says “spin”, I honestly have no idea what she’s talking about. I’m hardly what you’d describe as urban, but I don’t think that’s what it’s called anymore. “You want to DJ?” one of the music dudes translates, and that’s how I figure out what’s going on.

But Lindsay Lohan does that right? It must be really really hard. I’ll need to study.

And then we’re on to Ryan, the real reason for the visit. Doug’s got a guy named Machine for Ryan to meet up with. “Does he give good, constructive criticism?” Ryan asks sort of jokingly, meaning he’s pretty much looking for someone to pat him on the back, throw him in the studio and turn him into the next VH1 You Oughtta Know artist. Or the MTV equivalent.

We change scenes to the tune of furious guitar chords. I’m already getting the feel for Ryan’s music, and I’m already a little over it. Sure enough, Ryan’s strumming away passionately. This next one, he tells us, was based on one of his Iraq buddies who found out that his wife was cheating on him while he was overseas. “Liar! Liar!” emotes Ryan in a song hilariously reminiscent of the Joe song from Say Anything. “There was no truuuuust….liar, liar, LIAAAAAR!” croons Ryan over crashing guitar chords. Uplifting stuff for the times.

“Love it!” mouths Baya, who isn’t Ryan’s girlfriend and doesn’t have any feelings like that for him. “Please don’t lie to me anymore,” Ryan pleads in song, while everyone else bops their heads along. Chet’s taking another fashion risk with a pink middle eastern type scarf.

I will never lie to you, baby.

Later that night, or some other night, at Angels & Kings, Baya is getting her first “spinning” lesson. She’s certainly got her cool DJ moves down, high-fiving and pointing at her friends in the crowd. But she giggles a lot during the actual DJing part. Meanwhile, Katelynn is busy drinking her troubles away. Finally, someone got the memo! Katelynn’s drinking, and dancing and now she’s grinding up all over on everyone. First she’s rubbing up on a dude. Then a girl! Then she’s making out with a girl! The roommates cheer her on.

Devyn says that Katelynn clearly craves attention, and her way of going about it is to make out with whoever’s available. Sarah prances around with a cigarette. A cigarette! Who saw that one coming from little miss tree hugger? It doesn’t even look like a clove. Bad junior hipster. Katelynn starts hanging on Devyn, who dodges her grasp and runs over to Scotty yelling, “Save me!”

Katelynn’s justification for kissing everyone else in the bar is that her boyfriend is ignoring their relationship. “So break up with him,” suggests straight shooter Devyn. “But I loooooooove him,” whines Katelynn, and I’m calling her transition to a girl officially complete.

Fly on, butterfly!

The next day, or whenever, Chet and Ryan are headed into Manhattan for Ryan’s big meeting with Machine. Do these losers name themselves? They must. Not that “ChickBomb” radiates respectability, but it doesn’t sound half as stupid as Machine. Anyway, Chet’s big advice is for Ryan to “don’t fuck it up”. Ryan is excited and nervous. Machine looks like a total nerd, with horn-rimmed glasses.

“I know zero about Ryan,” says Machine. Got that, Ryan? You may have strolled in there with a camera crew, but you’re still a nobody. So Ryan charges right into his Iraq stories. “Wow, dude!” yells Machine, clearly impressed. They bond over war. “Respect,” Machine, whose horn-rimmed glasses wouldn’t be caught dead, alive or maimed over there, tells Ryan gravely.

Ryan continues on with his Iraq story, regaling Machine with how he waited on a courthouse roof for Sadaam Hussein’s helicopter to land every morning. And then Machine wants to know what’s going to “sell” Ryan, what’s going to endear him to the audience. Ummm, he’s cute and Iraq? What more do you want, Machine? Then he has Ryan play a song, and instead of going for the deep Iraq-angst crap he tortures us with in the house all day, he goes for one of his songs in the “comical” genre. A song about tampons. At Chet’s suggestion, which I found a little questionable. Chet knows better.

What?

And Machine is not impressed. Machine tells Ryan his little tampon ditty is cool and he’s lovable, but he should really build that with his friends, and just hope that people catch on and follow along. “Cause I’m ready to take a budget, and make a record,” Machine tells Ryan condescendingly. Ryan is disappointed with the reaction, but what kind of moron meets with a legit recording producer, in a legit studio, and plays some juvenile Weird Al song? Ryan mopes around the house all day singing about people killed and God knows why, songs with a message, and he chooses tampons for his big moment. Someone’s got a fear of success.

“I didn’t really want to play that song,” Ryan whines to Chet, who suggested the tampon song in the first place, and will clearly be dodging all the blame for this fiasco. But Chet’s not having it. “Then why did you play it?” he wonders, having probably only suggested the song to his dopey sidekick as a joke in the first place.

Don’t look at me. I just wanted to keep you near me. Is that so wrong?

Back at the house, Baya, who isn’t Ryan’s girlfriend and has only platonic friendly type feelings for him, is all over him wanting to know how it went in the big city. But Ryan’s not talking. Baya’s confused. He was so excited and nervous about the big audition, and now he’s bummed. Obviously he ate it, White Bread. And now Baya’s sad. “My heart goes out to him,” she says in a teary-eyed just friendly voice.

Over by the third love triangle, created between the two roommates that we hardly know are there, Devyn is making a very mature “BFF-o’meter” for her and Scotty. “It gauges our level of friendship…but it really gauges our level of closeness,” Dev clues everyone in, cause nobody else figured that out. The BFF-o’meter goes from Copilot to Wingman to Masseuse to Cuddle Bunny to Cry Baby to Dutch Over, which is apparently the level when they start farting around each other. Oh, hurry to that special place. Nothing says true intimacy like passing gas. Devyn is trying to determine whether their “level of closeness” means. Friendship…or something more.

Scotty, meanwhile, is worried about his friend Alex the model who also happens to live in Brooklyn, and is coming to the house for a visit today! Chet immediately hones in and starts flirting with her. Word has traveled to Devyn that competition is coming, and she’s all tarted up in a red dress that shows lots of cleavage. Take that, skinny model girl. Dev also proves how much she doesn’t have a crush on Scotty by making fun of his clothes to the new girl, who defends him. Oh, this is so not going as planned.

I’d break your ass in two, bitch, but I don’t wanna have to change my dress.

“I’m not jealous, just annoyed,” Dev explains. They all head out to dinner that night, and Devyn continues to prove how not jealous she is by telling us how she’s an expert on body language, and Scotty’s body is actually speaking two different languages and it’s giving her mixed signals. “The darker the berry, the sweeter the fruit,” she teases Scotty a little angrily. Take that, pasty white model! Scotty pretends like he has no idea what’s going on.

??? Fruit has sugar. Pass.

Meanwhile, Chet continues to put the moves on Alex. He asks her what the deal is with her and Scotty, and she tells him they’re like brother and sister and have never kissed, not even as friends. “There’s a strong physical attraction,” Chet divulges, “Also, she’s a model and I’m Chet, so…..” Chet’s been watching far too much Gossip Girl, but I’m totally okay with that.

The roomies get back to the house, and yay, we’re finally getting a visit to the hot tub! Baya turns up in a very chaste, yellow polka dot bikini. Chet didn’t think they actually made those. They do, for small chested girls who haven’t figured out how to work it in a two piece yet. Chet can see himself taking Alex the model out on a date, but Alex doesn’t seem too interested. “You broke his heart,” Dev tells Alex gleefully – having watched the ‘being a bitch’ and ‘trying to make him jealous’ schemes blow up in her face, Dev has resorted to becoming besties with this new ho. Good work Devyn, but a little slow.

I love you. Now tell me everything. Or I will hurt you. Hurt you dead.

And obvious. “So why haven’t you dated Scott? Does he have a girlfriend?” Devyn grills Alex. Way to play it cool. And please note for what happens in about five minutes that the answer to the Scotty having a girlfriend question is no.

Meanwhile everyone in the house is telling Devyn how cute she and Scotty are together, and now Devyn’s ready to lay down the ultimatum. “Are we best friends, or is it a crush? He needs to pick a side,” Devyn decides. Come on Scotty, it’s been nearly a week in the Real World house, time to shit or get off the pot! Whatcha waitin’ for?

And now back to our A-story love triangle, between Baya and Ryan. These two are out, probably at Angels & Kings, which seems to have been chosen as the only bar these Real Worlders will ever go to, and they’re getting flirty! “We get along cause I relate to his humor,” is Baya’s party line of the night.

But all of the sudden, Ryan is confrontational. “I have a girlfriend!” he suddenly shouts to her out of nowhere. Baya is very, very offended. She goes running to Sarah to report the outburst. “This has never, ever even crossed my mind,” she yells indignantly, over the spin, spin, spinning of the DJ’s funky music. No, never not even once. They just relate through the music. And to prove how frequently it’s never even occurred to her, Baya starts hugging Chet a whole lot. And is that an editing trick, or does Ryan look annoyed?

See? I’m all over all of my friends so don’t feel so special.

The next morning, or that night, you know I suck at timing this thing, Baya and Ryan have a very intense conversation about the incident at the bar. Only they have it through toothbrushes, to underplay the significance of the whole thing. Oh, let’s just touch on this while we’re brushing, is the message. No biggie that they’re totally hot for each other and Ryan’s freaking out about it.

“I got scared,” Ryan tells Baya through a mouthful of toothpaste. Then he emphatically tells her, “It’s not you, it’s me!” Wait, so she never even got to actually date him but she gets the tired old it’s-not-you-it’s-me brush off? Raw deal for Baya. “I’m a girl,” he tells Baya sheepishly, but she tells him they’re cool. “You’re one of my favorites in the house,” she tells him, through a secret toothpaste prayer that he breaks up with his hometown girl that afternoon.

And speaking of hometown girls, we meet up with Scotty at the computer, and Scotty has decided to confide in Sarah that he too has a girlfriend back home! What? Where did this girl come from? Sarah is appropriately shocked, and makes all kind of oohs and ahhhs about how pretty the girl back home is. Scotty tells Sarah that the girl is very beautiful, but he loves her for what’s inside. Okay, abs. You’re all about the inner beauty. Got it.

She’s gonna love how you kept her secret while you flirted over chicken flesh.

“How come I was under the impression that you were single?” Sarah asks suspiciously. Uh, because that’s what he told everyone while he scoped out the hos in the house to see if there was one who had more inner beauty than the hometown ho? Scotty dodges the question, but informs Sarah that once the girlfriend comes to visit, well, then he guesses the cat will be out of the bag.

So, of course it’s all girls on deck to caucus about the latest Scotty scoop. Katelynn claims to have known about Scotty’s status all along. “Well….huh,” is all Devyn has to say. And she is frustrated, and I don’t blame her. We flashback to the first night in the hot tub when Scotty flat out says he’s single. Why lie? Sarah and Dev settle their bet, but Devyn wants to get to the bottom of this. There’s no section on the BFF-o’meter for this one.

So Dev goes to wake Scotty up in the middle of the night to make him “pick a side”. He did, it just wasn’t yours, babe. They joke awkwardly, and then Devyn attacks. She tells him he gives a vibe, but his body language is saying different things. Okay, first of all, Devyn needs to leave this body language crap alone. If a guy likes you, he’ll let you know. Sitting around analyzing every hug and little eye flicker can only lead to disaster.

“I give hugs,” Scotty says faux-innocently. Well, hugs can be dangerous, Devyn informs him. Not his, replies Scotty, who’s probably being less deliberately obtuse and more legitimately stupid. Devyn patiently explains to him that when you lie about having a girlfriend, and then start giving sexy hugs and flirting with chicken cutlets and stuff…well, a girl can get the wrong idea.

Let me teach you a little something about body language. Boner=I like you. Anything else is just play.

“Some girls,” not Devyn, mind you, but some girls, “might take your hugs the wrong way,” she concludes. Dev tells us that she’s over it, because of the girlfriend and “we don’t do that”, which I love about her. Devyn doesn’t want to ruin their friendship, and she doesn’t want something fleeting, so they’re down to just besties. Then Devyn proves how over, over, over it she really is by giggling a lot and telling Scotty he’s stupid, but stupid in a good way. I’m still holding out hope for a drunken hookup. Come on, this cast is giving me nothing.

Over on Romantic Subplot 2a, Katelynn is trying to call the elusive Mike again. She gets his voicemail. She leaves a message saying she just wants to talk to him. She tells us in interview that she’s still heard nothing from him, and she loves him but she can’t make the relationship work all on her own. Which brings us to Counselor Sarah, who once again turns up to get all understanding and cheerleader-y about the situation.

Clearly you love him, Sarah deduces. But Katelynn is tired of always playing “catch up”. When will she be on par with someone, she wonders? Oh, this is kind of sad cause you know there’s all kinds of transgender emotional issues going on here. Sarah correctly points out that Katelynn might be clinging on to Mike cause she’s worried she won’t find someone else who loves her. Then Sarah tells her that she needs to tell Mike what’s wrong, cause he’s not a mindreader and he can’t guess. You would think Katelynn, having once been a boy, would have at least some clue how they (don’t) think, but she’s genuinely surprised to learn that she needs to tell him what’s wrong cause he’s not gonna guess it on his own.

Whatchadoin? Me too. Hmmmmmm. Whatchadoin now? Me too.

“You have to be very, very, vocal!” Sarah encourages Katelynn. Oh, well that part’s crap. Don’t let any man turn you into a nag. Tell him what’s up, but if he doesn’t get it, then move on. There’s plenty of kinky dudes who will be into the transgender thing out there, and quite honestly, if someone misses you…they call you! Sarah ends her speech with the realization that by Katelynn just expecting Mike to know what’s bothering her, she’s acting like “such a girl”. Katelynn glows with joy at the compliment.

Then she cries herself to sleep.

Then we get a random in-the-car scene where Ryan is napping on Baya’s shoulder. Baya is his platonic only friend ’cause he has a girlfriend back home, in case anyone forgot. Chet the troublemaker asks Ryan if he becomes famous, would he dump his girlfriend? Ryan hesitates a long time before answering. And who drives in Brooklyn? Take the damn F train like everyone else.

They unload at a new bar called Matches. This sounds like a gay bar, doesn’t it? But allegedly, it’s another one of those music biz bars. Katelynn immediately hooks up with a guitar player who she deems “a cool guy, down to earth”. Katelynn gets a lot of play, no?

And wow she works fast cause the very next day, Katelynn’s on a date with the new guy! Devyn says she’s in denial that it’s an actual date. “He likes you – get it, realize it, recognize it,” Dev catchphrases her. They do dinner and shopping, and as she stops off at the sofa to tell JD (I know, where’s he been tonight?) about her outing, he’s immediately all judgmental about it. “Does Mike know?” he asks her. Then he decrees Katelynn’s relationship status as “out of whack”. Whatever, do-gooder. Mike’s not there, and he’s not calling, Katelynn’s a free bird.

Katelynn goes on her date, and tells a tranny joke, which is a little weird, but doesn’t “out” herself to him. There’s a super annoying song playing in the background of the date, “Wanna kiss ya noooooow, wanna kiss ya noooooow” the singer croons as Katelynn and the date dude sit at dinner and stroll the city streets together. “Mona Lisa, Mona Lisa,” the song whines as it drones on forever, and then finally stops.

If I have to explain it, it’s not funny.

And then starts up again, as they approach the house. “Wanna kiss ya nooooow, wanna kiss ya nooooooow”. Change tunes already! Even “Liar, Liar, LIAR!!!!” was better than this mopey crap. Katelynn says that she has brought the new guy (I keep calling him that cause I didn’t catch his name and he’s not coming back anyway so it doesn’t really matter) back to the house to “get everyone’s opinion”. I love an independent thinker.

The new guy plays guitar for Katelynn, and she tells him the riveting story of how she once played only one CD in her car for four years! Then she hustles him in a game of pool, and Baya sticks in her two cents about how Katelynn isn’t obligated to tell her date about the transgender thing, but how could she not tell him? Kind of a good point. This transgender thing is sticky.

No pun intended.

Anyhow, it’s all kind of a moot point, cause Katelynn doesn’t feel the connection with the guy anyway, so “coming out” to him isn’t going to be an issue. “I just want my boyfriend back,” she says plainly, and dammit, too much more of this and it won’t be long before I’m getting teary eyed too. I wish this asshole would just call her already.

Finally, it’s time to do something fun. Well, fun for the Real World Brooklyn, which means pretty dull but we’ll work with what we’ve got. They’re going to the Cardio Strip class at Crunch! Have I mentioned yet what a great gym Crunch is? If there’s one in your area, I highly recommend joining one. I’d sure like to! How ’bout that, Crunch?

Anyway, Ryan wants to tag along and he does so in a eighties style sweatband. Baya does her stripper moves with a very, very serious look on her face, and doesn’t have any more rhythm here than she did in hip hop class. Katelynn and Devyn have some moves though, and Sarah like always runs around and giggles.

“Ryan and I flirt…but it’s just ridiculous,” says Baya about her platonic only pal. But maybe not so much, cause when Ryan gets home from the stripper class, he heads right over to the computer to type Baya an email! Perhaps he’s trying to be clever and keep the cameraman away from what he’s doing, but this trick doesn’t work on the Real World, and we get the whole text. He tells Baya that she’s totally his type, but not for right now. He’s not “canceling it out” though. Wow.

That outfit? SEX.

Baya reads the email, and really has no idea how to react. I’m with Baya on this one. Ryan’s so annoying. He flirts with her all the time, keeps talking about how hot she is, totally his type and then flips out on her with the whole “I have a girlfriend!” panic. Then he sends her an email telling her, what, to wait for him? See if his current relationship can withstand the Real World house, and then they’ll see what’s what? This is so stupid. I can’t believe I just wrote a whole paragraph about it.

So Baya takes a walk with Devyn, who’s one of those people who gives great, level-headed advice to everyone else and then acts like a dodo in her own situation. Anyway, she tells Baya to go ahead and be close friends with Ryan if she wants, but to be aware that rare are the man and woman who can be close friends without one (or both) having feelings. Then she offers to make Baya a secret BFF-o’meter for her and Ryan.

Devyn’s such a little hottie, prancing the city street with some fabulous cleavage, and Baya kind of walks like a duck. But Miss Thing is charitable enough to tell White Bread that she should enjoy the fact that she’s a hot mama and someone just couldn’t help himself. “That’s you and you’re that fabulous,” Devyn tells Baya. Uh, really? This is White Bread we’re talking about here.

Next week, Sarah has drama with her Dad. Tears and hugs abound. I’m on the edge of my seat. Kisses til then…