I Just Thought I Had Found Something Real: All The Wrong Reasons Episode Eight / All The Wrong Reasons (ePub)

The season of Fated continues the same way it always has.

Group dates at odd hours. Dramatic shoe ceremonies. Awkward double dates. They've practically got it down to a science by now.

Regardless of what has happened, or who shows up to investigate, or how many people think filming should be cancelled.

Pay no attention to the chaos and heartbreak behind the scenes, it's not important.

Really.

Trust us.

***

Fated.

An award-winning reality dating show, or, as the network likes to call it, The Real Last Chance For A Fairy Tale Ending.

You know how this works.

One Prince Charming is picked. He's inevitably handsome, shredded, has a vague enough sounding job to be legitimate, and the ability to lie really well to the cameras. He's looking for his One True Love, and obviously, the best way of finding that person (who always happens to be a white woman, between five foot three and five foot ten, wearing approximately a size zero to four, and preferably blonde) is to have a team of producers round up seventeen women who are all more or less interchangeable, move them into a castle, ply them with alcohol, turn cameras on, and broadcast it all on national television.

Add in a plethora of the most ridiculous dates the producers can possibly think of, too many feelings, real and fake, and an emotional proposal at the end, and you have the highest-rated reality show in history.

Everyone is willing to play the game. Some walk in more willing than others, but in the end, they all believe in it. The show, the fairy tale, the happily ever after. Regardless of what's happened to previous 'winners' of the show.

It's not like anyone's ever been there for the right reasons. But never have the wrong reasons been so wrong.