From Rachel Toor, Sandboxer-in-Chief
If you've been reading this newsletter, or the columns I wrote for The Chronicle of Higher Education since the beginning of time, you know that my brow can go low, very low.
For years, I had former grad students come over to watch the latest episodes of The Bachelor. And then, The Bachelorette. It was great because I have prosopagnosia am bad at recognizing people and all those blond women and gel-slicked hair guys looked exactly the same to me. It was a judgy pleasure, those "reality shows," until we all started feeling dirty about our judginess.
Recently, on my own, I've indulged in The Golden Bachelor.
If you've missed it, the main dude is a 71-year-old salt-of-the-earth Hoosier who makes men of a certain age look great and has given women hope that there are mensches to be found.
The trope of Bachelor Nation is that each season is the "most dramatic season ever."
This one wasn't.
The big drama? When a woman who seemed like a terrific match for our man decided to go home because her daughter had just given birth and needed her mom.
The producers couldn't manufacture conflict among this group of women who couldn't not be themselves, burping and farting and joking about shoe size (!) on national television for their grandkids to see. [Note: I have not yet watched the final episode that aired Thursday.]
If you're single or recently divorced, you may have learned that dating is the fountain of youth. New relationships send you right back to junior high. All the ups, all the downs, all the feels.
And while it's a blast to ride that coaster, if you're old enough to wear shoes that don't hurt and realize that no one cares about your eyebrows, you can capitalize on the gifts of aging and shed a bunch of burdensome crap, like the armor of insecurity.
In this Sandbox space, while we encourage leaders to vent about problems that are shared, if not discussed, by others in the same role, we also want to have a big pajama party and let y'all throw pillows at each other and laugh so hard you pee your pants. Because maybe we've had enough competition and backstabbing.
Our guest president this week is calling for more burping in public authenticity in gatherings of leaders.