Robin wants to marry her boyfriend!

Robin wants to marry her boyfriend!

If the ”Real World: San Diego” roommates have jet lag, I think I have episode lag. A week after watching the chaos and lunacy that was the Greece trip, I still can’t sleep well, and have constant headaches and blurred vision. This state of mind was actually fortuitous, since it allowed me to really relate to drunk Robin in the May 18 episode.

In case you forgot, Robin was happily in love with her boyfriend, Mike. But because she’s old-fashioned, they’ve been dating for a month and still haven’t slept together. I have to say, this news surprised me: Considering how it was just a couple of months ago that she crawled into Randy’s bed naked, I didn’t think ”hard to get” was in her vocabulary. That is, unless the sentence was, ”It sure is hard to get sangria stains out of your hair.”

When the whole gang went out — along with Randy’s visiting friends from Boston — Robin proved just how old-fashioned she can be: When she gets drunk, she doesn’t want to have sex, she wants to get married. ”I want to spend the rest of my life with you,” she slurred. ”Marry me,” said Mike, setting himself up for a union that would make Britney Spears’ Vegas betrothal seem well-considered. Look, I can forgive the producers for not interfering when the roomies are drinking unhealthy amounts of alcohol, or when Frankie acts insane, but I draw the line here — somebody should have dragged Mike away for his own good. Where’s the humanity?

Of course, Robin being drunk, the magic only lasted as long as her walk to the nearest tequila shooter. Drinking mass quantities of alcohol is like going to work for Robin — she has to do it as a bartender at Coyote Ugly. So why does a pro boozer act so much like an amateur? After overindulging, she did her favorite street performance: yelling at people waiting in line and giving them the finger.

By this point, the ”Real World”ers have been out on the town so much that everyone in San Diego must know about the Busty Reality-TV Girl Who Goes Crazy. It’s probably the default pastime for bored San Diegans: ”There’s no good movies out, and I don’t feel like drinking. Let’s go stand outside of Bennigan’s and get the ‘Real World’ girl to take a swing at us.”

Mike was surprised — and disgusted — to see this side of her. He asked the roommates, ”Is this how she always is?” No! Sometimes she smells of gin, not whiskey. Or was that not what he was looking for? He stormed off, and she staggered after him, wailing, ”Baby, please don’t leave me!” Hey, what if Robin and Mike do end up getting married, and have kids, and in about 10 years those children are watching an MTV retro ”Real World” rebroadcast and see Mommy drunkenly weeping and chasing Daddy down the street? And to think I was nervous about my future kids seeing old photos of me in a bad haircut.

Robin eventually dragged herself into a cab, and her dramatic weeping made it seem like she told the driver, ”Take me to Suicide Point!” Turns out she just rode to Mike’s parking space. Boy, there’s nothing taxi drivers like more than a 50-cent fare. She jumped in Mike’s car and refused to get out, and after her pride proved impervious to his tough love (”Who are you? Look at yourself!”), he exhaustedly got in the car and drove her home, where he apparently had sex with her five times, as she later bragged to her roomies. It’s that old love-story chestnut: Boy meets girl, girl disgusts boy, boy has sex with woman when she won’t get out of his car. When they make the movie version of this classic romance, I hope they cast Clay Aiken and Courtney Love.

By episode’s end, Robin wasn’t the only one who had tasted romance. Randy had fooled around with his friend from Boston in his party tent? a tent that Robin and Mike later canoodled in. (Considering that was the tent where Brad and Cameran once hooked up, I think even Smokey the Bear would recommend burning it down.) And then, in what passes for an uplifting ending on ”The Real World,” the house celebrated love and commitment by going out to a ”Pimps and Hos” party. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to go talk Cupid down off a ledge.