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Our weekend with Chip

Heeheehee. Now that I've got your attention (the Chip & Reichen addicts among you), I must inform you that the title of this post is a gross exageration.

I did spend the weekend at a party with him, but so did 250 other guests, and my contact was pretty modest. But addicts are addicts, so here goes:

First off, he's stunningly handsome in person. Is it the camera not doing justice to him, or the cross of having to stand beside Reichen all the time? Both, probably. He looked great in jeans, matinee-idol in his tux.

Here's the painful part about writing the above paragraph: Having met him, I feel like an ass comparing his looks to his husband's, or especially his ex-husband's. What a painful thing to have to face--over and over and over. And yet, that's what happened all summer. Many of us did find it hard to tear our eyes away from Reichen any time he stepped into frame.

Now I'm torn: part of me feels like a jerk for being part of the pack that vocalized something that has got to sting something awful. But what's the alternative: pretend it's not happening, when millions of other viewers are doing it anyway?

The upside is that when you see Chip without Riechen: Wow. He's really stunning all by himself.

Now imagine being Chip, and turning heads wherever you roam and then hooking up with Reichen and suddenly seeing the stares look right past you. Yow. Sure would have done a number on me.

He's also much taller than he came across. I'm 6'2'', and I think he was a couple inches taller than me.

Personality was harder to gauge from my contact--several very brief chats, a 15-minute van ride where the group chatted, and of course lots of evesdropping--but he seemed like a really nice guy. At the very least he was always smiling and pleasant and extremely gracious with everyone I witnessed, including me.

Beyond that I should probably respect his privacy (which does not mean he did something highly embarassing--he did not, not even a little, as far as I know)--but I don't think he would mind saying how competitive he was in the Eco Challenge. I was friends with a couple people on his team, and lets just say you could see the same intensity you saw on the show.

The most interesting thing to me was the strength of his personality. While in one sense he was exactly what you would expect, he was actually much more of it.

Definitely a force of his own without any Reichen. It's easy to see why CBS cast him: his looks, his intensity--I could feel it just walking by when he was engaged in conversation a few times--the sheer force of personality.

As viewers, I think it's easy to lose site of the fact that we tend to assess each character's behavior in light of how all the others are reacting to it. And I think they're casting a show full of people who all react intensely.

I can only imagine the final casting session for this show or Survivor. Must be an exercise in overstimulation.

And it must be hard to stand out on a show like The Race, because everyone else has a personality with the volume blaring at nine and a half.