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Love Cruise’s Lisa, a Self-Esteem Nightmare
by Susan Schechter
-- 07/10/2002
Lisa, who was recently tossed from Love Cruise, has only herself to blame. Not only did she suffer from low self-esteem, but she broadcast it to one and all. Pity and sympathy only go so far...
There is a character on Love Cruise I find myself wanting to hate. She has gotten on every last nerve I have. I want to strangle her when she talks; I want to shake some sense into her about the way she behaves. I have been thinking about this all week – why do I dislike her so much? Why does she bring out every bad quality I have and make me feel so full of bile? The answer is simple. She and I are very similar. Too similar. Yes, she is a brunette and I am a blonde, she has brown eyes I have blue, but we both have peaches and cream complexions and our families are from similar backgrounds. We are both highly educated, and we are both in our 30s. And we both suffer from low self esteem. The difference is I don’t broadcast it to the world. I would die if anyone (other than my faithful readers, of course) knew this and I sure wouldn’t be telling potential dates.
Yes, it’s Lisa I am referring to. I related to her right away, even before she opened her mouth. She looked like every girl I went to summer camp with. Rich, privileged, in other words, a Jewish Daisy Buchanan. A classy figure, because thin and tall is always classier than short and zaftig. High maintenance. And she looks like she tans, unlike me who got blessed with that fair English/Irish skin that doesn’t. But like the fairy tale frog princess, she opened her mouth, and that was the end of that. How could such a beautiful woman spout such …. dreck?
Okay. She decided to play the sympathy card. Fine, she’s divorced. Most people in their 30s and 40s I know are on spouse #2. So what? I would be more worried if she was that gorgeous, and NEVER married! But does she need to tell everyone “I have low esteem?” “ I am so ugly compared to the other girls?” or even worse, “I’ll never get a man?” Was it me or did she strike anyone else as too emotionally needy? You know people do not want to be around other people who are constantly asking, “am I okay?” Take this exchange for example.
Lisa is talking to Toni, (that is the female Toni, not the male Tony) and Toni falls right into her pocket, telling her how beautiful and smart she is. She then just a few minutes later, hears the same from one of the men. Then another one of the men This went on for four episodes until Melissa got wise and realized it’s an act. The only man she did not do this act with was the Kenny G look-alike, and that is because he left too quickly.
So why would she want to play this act out, and why would she do this on national TV?
I can only offer my opinion, but of course I do not know what she was really thinking. This is my spin, as an amateur shrink and former English major. We have not had a real “victim” yet on reality TV. She confessed to the camera that she was teased by the boys when she was 8. Hello? How many girls are NOT teased by boys at the age of 8? Little boys tease little girls. It’s not a traumatic thing. Losing a parent at 8 is traumatic. Having a boy tease you and call you ugly is normal. Even a shrink will tell you that. Let it go. Realize, as a grown woman having observed little boys, that this is how boys behave. Boys think girls have cooties. That’s a fact of life. To be obsessing about it 30 years later is not normal. Just let it go.
And that’s the problem with playing the part of a victim. Yes, you garner sympathy. But eventually sympathy dries out. Do you want to be like Queen Victoria and wear mourning black for more than half your life? Sticky Vicky got away with it, because she was the Queen and to paraphrase Mel Brooks, “It’s good to be the Queen.”
The whole thing was a bloody shame. Lisa could have been the gal to win. She was not a blonde bimbo. She was probably the only girl on the boat with an IQ over her chronological age. The men really liked her – at the beginning. But she played it real dumb. For example, there is nothing wrong with kissing two men in one evening, if you are all single. She could have pulled it off. But you don’t go around telling both of them. And never call a kiss a “pity kiss” to anyone, ever, unless its your shrink or your diary. (This works for men as well, never tell a girl she was a pity.. well you know.) And the ironic thing is, like attracts like. If you come off as needy and co-dependent, you will get someone who is the same. But if you come off as a strong, sincere, honest person, you will get a mate who will be the same thing. And in the end, isn’t that what we really want? A mate who will be there for us, but will also complement and make you feel like the most valuable person in the universe? Who will grow with us but not be like a parent?
So in the end. Lisa lost because she was Lisa. Had she decided to play it the other way she would have won. I would have guaranteed it. But playing the victim, she cooked her own goose.
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