I’m too old to be on The Real World

The new season of MTV’s The Real World premiered last night and as I watched 7 strangers picked to live in a house and see what happens when things start getting real, I got a dose of actual reality.  All of the seemingly slutty and unstable castmembers were in their early twenties.  I am decidedly NOT in my early twenties.  I google’d Real World casting calls and my jaw hit the floor (lie, I was in the midst of stuffing chocolate covered cranberries in my mouth, so my jaw continued chewing but in a surprised and horrified manner but no less vigorously) when I saw the age limit, 18-24.  I am 26, verging on 27.  I am too old to be on Real World. 

I have long harbored a secret desire to be on the Real World, what I’ve always considered to be the holy grail of reality television.  With this in mind, I made a Real World audition tape at 17 in my high school best friend’s attic bedroom.  The majority of the tape consists of me remarking on how amazing I look on camera and how I simply can’t get enough of seeing myself on film (clearly I displayed the requisite vanity and self absorption for Real World). I go on to enumerate all the qualities (listed below) that are essential for a successful cast member, qualities I display in abundance:

• An insatiable appetite for talking shit. There is nothing I enjoy quite so much as pointing out and analyzing the flaws and shortcomings of others.  Its especially enjoyable to pick apart close friends who have confided in you their deepest fears and insecurities in you.  Nothing brings me up like putting others down!
• A deep and abiding self hatred.   Insecurity and self-loathing is a necessary primer for binge drinking and poor decisions, both of which are vital for good television.  My own insecurity combined with my godless malleable sense of morality has produced a litany of truly questionable choices over the years.  Insecurity is the single most important quality for any reality television star.
• Low-standards.  Attendant to my uncontrollable binge drinking, I will make out with essentially anyone that tells me I’m pretty.  

Armed with low self-esteem and a desire to exploit myself for temporary validation (followed by a life of regret and no one taking me seriously due to my 15 minutes of reality television fame), I made what is arguably the best Real World audition tape ever.  

Alas I was only 17.  I decided to wait a bit before submitting the tape.  I wanted to explore my low standards in college, test my low standards at frat parties, further depress my self esteem by joining a sorority of bulemic rich girls.  So I waited.  After college I had some vague notion of changing the world and the world being my oyster.  So I held off on pursuing reality TV induced fame. I waited.  And waited.  And waited.

 Now at 26 I’m too old for Real World.  I guess I need to start paving the way for Real House-wives in ten years.