There exists this show on the TLC network called 90 Day Fiancé and it is among the best of reality television. Both the show itself, the and cult like following and dissection of the show on blogs, but mostly on Reddit (which is an insanely active subreddit). What’s the show about? It’s about rather sad Americans (who are typically troubled in some way), going and “falling in love” with a foreigner and applying to bring them to the U.S. on a K1 visa (Fiancé Visa) which gives them a scant 90 days to marry that person once they arrive in the US, or send them packing.

So as you can imagine the stories are basically:

• American cannot find love in the US because, well, there’s nothing attractive about them other than the fact that they live in the US.
• There are people who live in countries where it would be worse to stay there, than to marry a questionable person who can bring you to the US.

You think I am being glib about this, but you think fucking wrong. Allow me to tell you about a cast member named Paul, who we shall call by his Reddit approved name “Pole”. You see Pole has a felony for arson, but he found a lovely young woman who lives (as far as I can tell) in a shack made of plywood. Pole heads to meet her in person for the first time, and makes sure to pack penis protection, not for sex, but for his highly irrational fear of organisms crawling up his urethra should he swim in a river. Why not avoid swimming in a river, you ask? This is never addressed.

Anyways, Pole traveled to meet the woman of his dream (that’s not a typo, I am certain he only has this one dream) while carrying a lock of his mother’s hair in his backpack — which she gave him, and honestly I thought he was going to cry when she did. Still think my description thus far is unfair? I didn’t think so…

But let’s take a quick swing over to Vulture where, Ziwe Fumudoh in the recap of part one of the tell-all for season 6 portion of the show has this amazing gem about the show:

The whole premise is that Americans who couldn’t find anyone to love them here go abroad to find someone willing to sleep with them in exchange for citizenship. At it’s best, 90 Day Fiancé is a story about how love knows no language, but at its literally-everything-else, it’s about desperate people doing desperate things to not feel alone.

Ok, that’s much better said then mine, and that entire post is amazing. And Fumudoh in the part II recap hits the nail on the head with this show:

Over the course of a season, it seems like we’ve come so far only to land back where we started. And isn’t that the premise of 90 Day Fiancé? Committing to something without really knowing what you’re getting into, only to look back on the time you’ve spent together and wonder why you got involved in the first place.

90 Day Fiancé is on season 6. There’s further spin-offs which are “Before the 90 Days” and “Happily Ever After” — both of which are fucking amazing to watch. There’s a woman who up an decides that since she can’t bring her love to the U.S. (his visa application was denied) she will just move to Morocco with her young child — and can you imagine how happy that made him? Yeah. There’s literal fights and so much more.

Watching this show is at once depressing, and addicting. For starters: how in the fuck do any of these people survive? That’s an ongoing question I have. It’s also a look into desperation on both ends of the relationship. Foreigner putting up with extremely rude people, some who are actually abusive, in hope of coming to America and getting citizenship. Of Americans doling out money to people they have never met, all because they think they fell in love.

Did I mention Ricky? He flew to meet the woman of his dreams, waiting like 3 fucking hours for her to show for dinner, then never saw her again. But don’t worry, he had a backup woman to move on to so that his two week trip wasn’t a waste. Or maybe it was.

Love, ain’t it grand?

You really should be watching this shit show, it’s fucking amazing. And the second best show on TV right now.