I have a Jersey Shore problem.

Before you say that watching Jersey Shore at all is a problem, I already know that, so don’t bother. What I realised today, however, is that I’ve stopped watching the show as a passive viewer, and have transitioned to more of an active participant. I know that sounds weird, so let me explain. 

I don’t know how familiar all of you are with the show itself or the storyline of this season in particular, so I’ll keep this brief. Essentially, Mike (The Situation) may or may not be lying to the other housemates/the world about something that may or may not have happened between him and Nicole (Snooki) off-season. The point is that Nicole has a boyfriend back home who has already been told that Mike is lying, and Mike is threatening to have a third party confirm the story to Nicole’s boyfriend, while at the same time telling Nicole how in love with her he is and how he’d be an incredible boyfriend to her. He’s essentially emotionally terrorising her, and it’s not nice to watch. The scene where Nicole started throwing almost everything in the house that wasn’t tied down at him was particularly satisfying. Dude is a snake in the grass. Watching him try to manipulate the rest of the cast and then sit in a room by himself, chuckling with pleasure, makes me suspect that Mike may be an actual sociopath.

Anyway, where my creepiness comes into this is that while watching this week’s episode, I found myself thinking about how I would explain to Mike that his line of reasoning is flawed. He had this plan where, because he felt like somebody was “ratting” on him by telling Nicole all the harsh shit he has been saying about her behind her back, he was going to tell a lie to the housemates and wait for it to get back to Nicole. When it did, he would them supposedly have proof that somebody was ratting on him. Now, this is an okay plan, but what he needed to do, and what I found myself explaining to him in my head was to tell different lies to each of the housemates and see which lie came back. Then he would know not only that somebody was ratting on him, but who exactly it was.

My second clue that I have a Jersey Shore problem is that I wanted to take Mike aside and explain to him that nobody actually was ratting on him, and that if he’s going to say all these awful things behind Nicole’s back, of COURSE the other cast members are going to go and tell her about it, and he really should expect it. That’s not being a rat, that’s just being a good friend to Nicole and giving a girl a head’s up.

I found myself really frustrated, because I wanted so badly to sit these people down and explain things to them, and then I realised that I was being way too involved in a pretty terrible reality television show. Finding yourself caring too much about television characters is one thing, but finding yourself working out your arguments of reason with them in your head is another thing entirely.