Single in the City: An Interview with Bridget Harrison

Single in the City had its season finale this week, and just in time to talk about the show and dating in the city with New York Post columnist Bridget Harrison. Bridget writes about dating and single life on Page Six in the Post and was portrayed on Single in the City as the professional dater and a "real life Carrie" from HBO's hit series Sex in the City.

RealityNewsOnline: How did you find out about Single in the City?

Bridget: The producers approached me, apparently they had been calling around to news organizations, public relations-media outlets like that and requesting people. Someone gave them my name since I write the column and they wanted to get a different take on the dating scene by someone who actually writes about it.

RealityNewsOnline: How long did they follow you with cameras?

Bridget: It was over a six week period, they would call to see if I had something interesting planned and they would come along. They did not cover me as much as some of the other girls because I had a smaller part.

RealityNewsOnline: Did any of the restaurants or men you were dating object to the cameras?

Bridget: The places the producers chose for us to go were places they had worked with before and so they knew it was OK. The guys I dated had to sign a release to be on the show. That was actually the hardest part, it was a nightmare trying to find guys from the matchmaker service who would agree to be on the show. I think they were too embarrassed about using the matchmakers. The people I did date I was concerned with the way they might be portrayed. It didn't seem right to have someone who was kind enough to go out and do this thing to turn around and be rude to by letting the producers annihilate them on TV.

RealityNewsOnline: Did you feel that the matchmaking services you hired were helpful?

Bridget: Not to me in particularly, the men were mostly older and upper New Yorky-successful, interesting intelligent people who had a different mentality than I did as a downtown type.

RealityNewsOnline: How did you feel about the final Single In The City product - were you accurately portrayed?

Bridget: I was accurately portrayed, but I was horrified. On the first date, there I was, being stood up, standing there with my pot belly and they were interspersing me with one of the Barracudas drinking Champagne with her ex-boyfriend. I was so unglamorous. And the scene was twisted a bit, he was only fifteen minutes late, not the hour like they made it out to be. We did miss the first part of the Madonna show but just the very beginning, not half of it. I wanted to be very careful how about how I came across. I was very conscious of the fact that we were being filmed. In England there is a bit of a fly on the wall-telly atmosphere which I am aware of and wanted to avoid.

RealityNewsOnline: Did you know or meet any of the other participants?

Bridget: Not really, although I did see some of the Barracudas in a bar, I was embarrassed because I did not want to offend them but I hadn't really watched every second of the entire series so I was less familiar with them than they were with me. I do still talk with Penny occasionally on the phone, she is the one of the other English girls and we do keep in touch, but that is about it.

RealityNewsOnline: How do you feel the show portrayed the real live dating scene in the city?

Bridget: It did capture the reality of the dating scene, but was a bit exaggerated at times. There is a culture of social life that revolves around blind dates and being set up and if you go on a lot of those kind of dates then that is the way it is. It can be a nightmare, you have a list of questions and judgments for these blind dates and it becomes very clinical, like a job interview. It is absolutely mercenary. New Yorkers are so apt to just toss someone aside because there are so many other people out there.

RealityNewsOnline: What do you do for fun, since dating is actually "work" for you?

Bridget: I hang out with my friends, I only date once every week or couple of weeks. I party some, go to bars and drink. Other writers at the NY Post are fairly young, it is a cool fun place to work and so we do things together. I go out with my group of English girls also, I go away for weekends, but not to the Hamptons, I go to the Jersey Shore. I go hiking.