Greg Buis article: "I had sex with a Survivor!"
dcj...@yahoo.com
September 20, 2000
I had sex with a Survivor!
A televisual romance.
By Suzanne M. Galante
IT'S HALLOWEEN, 1995, and I'm dressed up as a stalk of celery. My
costume is part of a larger salad ensemble at a friend of a friend's
house in Boulder, Colo. That's the night I met Greg Buis, a cast member
who was voted off the island on CBS's Survivor series.
Despite my husband's nagging, I managed not to tune into the notorious
reality TV show until midseason. Who knew the treat that was in store
for me? It's not often we get to see an ex gallivanting half-naked on
an island in the South China Sea on national television.
I'm not completely sure how Greg and I started talking at that
Halloween party five years ago. Surely he wasn't attracted to my green
foam-board celery costume, although several guys at the party offered
to spread peanut butter on me. I'm sure it was partly the result of the
many assorted beverages I had consumed and the gray haze of a certain
kind of cigarette seeping into my lungs. Certainly I was attracted to
his strong jaw line, his long hair (it's apparently since been
chopped), his friendly smile, his peach-fuzzy sideburns, and the blond
chest hair that overflowed out of his suggestively unsnapped blue plaid
flannel shirt. But the real reason I swooned over him was because he
was dressed as the sexy Dukes of Hazzard character Bo Duke.
Through his Halloween costume, Greg unsuspectingly hit a repressed
childhood memory. Back when I was nine, Bo was my first real love. I'm
not the only woman around my age who could make that confession.
I guess there's just something attractive about television characters.
We watch them while we are eating or relaxing in our sweats or in our
nighties. They "see" us, accept us, and never start a fight with us
regardless of how bitchy or critical we might be. Those imaginary
people sometimes seem exactly like who we've been looking for and can't
find in the real world.
That blond babe Bo Duke sure did it for me. He was a hottie. It was
wonderful to be able to look his televised body up and down and not
have him judge me for being young and inexperienced. Then, years later
at that Halloween party, suddenly he was standing in front of me – or I
should say his look-alike was standing in front of me. I just knew that
I had to pursue him. It's not often that we get to consummate our lust
for celebrated TV characters. While I knew that Greg wasn't really Bo
Duke, he would certainly do.
Once we started talking, I was filled with visions of those good old
Duke boys when they ran and jumped into their fast car in their tight,
dusty blue jeans. At that moment, I knew Greg was the one. You know,
the one that starts with "I've never done this before, but ..." and
ends with breakfast.
Together we abandoned our friends and left the party. I half expected
to see the General Lee – Bo's orange car with "01" painted on the side –
parked out front. Instead we drove in Greg's 1950-something sea foam
green pickup truck to the Flatirons. We climbed up into the hillside
and sunk into each other's unfamiliar arms for warmth. We talked and
waited for the sun to rise, although I hoped it would never come. I was
loving being there with Bo. Ahem ... I mean Greg.
The exhilaration associated with being with someone new led to long
kisses that left our warm breath rising in puffs up into the night sky.
That's probably when my exhales accidentally loosened the glue that was
holding the fuzz to his cheekbones. My hands, reaching for unexplored
and clothed body parts, plucked a clump of fake fuzz from his chest.
With each tuft, the façade came crumbling down. He wasn't anything like
the hunky, rugged ex-TV star I was lusting after. He was just a kid in
TV star's clothing.
While I was disappointed at his youthfulness, there was no turning back
now. I was 22. He was 19, he revealed soon after I exposed his smooth
chest. How much does age really matter when we're talking about a
fling? I never really considered lack of experience – a huge mistake –
but by the time I figured that out, it was too late. And I was ready to
overlook that minor flaw because I was in Boulder as a celibate college
senior from Boston doing an internship at KMGH in Denver. He was my
fling, and I was sticking with him. Besides, he was in his sexual
prime, and if nothing else, stamina is good. And if all those
rationalizations didn't quite do it, I just had to close my eyes and he
was Bo again.
Had he been dressed as nearly anyone else on that Halloween night, I
probably wouldn't have pursued him with such vigor. But he was Bo, and
it was magic. Heck, I watched Dukes of Hazzard for years, so it seemed
like I already knew him. Ironically, my fling who dressed up like a TV
star is becoming a quasi TV star of his own. I'll bet there are girls
lusting after Greg the way I lusted after Bo. It's strange how things
work out sometimes.
Television makes us long for relationships and lifestyles that we don't
have. Look at the cast of NBC's Friends. The six main characters are
attractive on their worst days. And can someone explain to me how they
have so much time to spend together if they are all working full-time?
But that's the joy of television. If we want reality, we always have
CNN. Entertainment television is one big fantasy.
Then along comes a show like Survivor. We know it's not real, but it's
not completely scripted the way sitcoms are either. Even if I tuned in
and found no former lovers on Survivor, I probably still would have
been sucked into the "real-life" drama. Don't get me wrong; it was
fabulous to see my old beau on television. It was exciting watching him
lift big pieces of wood, swim for immunity, and yak away on his "nature
phone" made out of a coconut shell (although I toned down my excitement
for my mortified husband's sake). But my real attraction to the
Survivor show was deeper. Knowing that these were just regular, albeit
quirky, people out on this island made me a believer. There were zits
to be seen and unshaven armpits (scandalous) right there in front of us.
Like so many Survivor junkies, I've secretly been thinking that these
islanders could be me. I just know I could have maneuvered through some
of the tricky island politics and alliances. Surely I could have come
up with a better plan for voting people off the show than Sean's silly
and cowardly alphabetical strategy. Being vegetarian, I have definitely
wondered if I would have eaten part of that fat island rat had I been
hungry enough. I know I'm not alone. That's the beauty of this reality-
television show. They're just a bunch of regular schmucks. Seeing them
trying jump-starts our competitive nature into high gear. We know those
people really aren't any better than we are. They just happened to be
ballsy enough to want to try and prove themselves on national
television.
But more than just being able to empathize with the student or the
carpenter or the retired Navy SEAL and their trials and tribulations on
that island, it does help that they are mostly attractive individuals.
Who doesn't enjoy watching buff and slender men and women in their
skivvies? OK, so Rich isn't so buff or slender. But perhaps that's also
part of the attraction. In one episode, the five remaining cast members
had to slather themselves in mud and transport as many personal
belongings as they could using only their bodies. We all wanted to
cover our eyes when Rich's blubber glistened with wet gray mud, but we
just couldn't. There was a gruesome fascination in seeing his excessive
mud-coated love handles jiggle by.
Mostly, these are attractive people whom we could meet at a bar or a
party. And it just so happens that I did meet Greg at that Halloween
party. Of course, he wasn't famous at the time. And our rendezvous
wasn't the kind of drawn-out episode that I had envisioned many times
in my youth. We were sprawled on the living room floor by the fire when
my roommate's friend let himself in. Not exactly picture-perfect.
Our torrid love affair lasted a few weeks less than the number of
episodes Greg was on Survivor. I knew he wouldn't last. If he couldn't
survive me, I knew he'd never survive the show. But maybe his
idiosyncrasies and his newfound stardom will lead to other adventures.
Perhaps at a Halloween party far, far away, some guy will be dressed up
as Greg from the Survivor show – complete with coconut phone – to
fulfill the repressed fantasies of an unsuspecting college girl and to
lead her on an adventure of her own.
In the meantime, Greg is attempting to make a quiet exit from his
several weeks in the spotlight. It will be more difficult than
declining the CBS Morning Show interview or skipping the talk show
circuit (especially with a former fling turned journalist tapping out
her tale). As much as he'd like to go back to his regular life as a
carpenter in Gold Hill, Colo., his image, and all the others', is
ingrained in the minds of too many television watchers. And he reminds
most of us of someone we know or want to know.
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