After years of successfully avoiding every popular reality show on television, my boyfriend and I are actually using space on my DVR to record episodes of VH1’s The Pick-Up Artist.

The show runs on the premise that some men are basically inept, primitive morons who are unable to express their simplest desires in courtship and must resort to elaborate cat and mouse games to reach their ultimate goal: sex. Mystery, the show’s host and self-described Master Pickup Artist, likes to emphasize how his techniques aren’t just about getting women into bed; it’s really about learning one’s self-worth and gaining confidence. It’s a pretty lofty way to describe a show which encourages its contestants to bait women with practiced, scripted conversation (”Settle an argument for me, is kissing considered cheating?”). It isn’t the seriousness that Mystery treats his craft that makes the show so laughable (or his cringing fashion sense that underscores it), but the lengths in which these otherwise mild-mannered, lonely men would go for a lousy, alcohol-induced kiss. Moment after painfully awkward moment, each contestant is thrown into various nightclubs to execute the material they’ve learned.

It is absolutely irresistible to watch.

In every reality series, there is always one contestant audiences tirelessly root for and one who provokes only the most hateful of emotions, someone so perfectly unlikable it ensures a steady, loyal rating. For me, that exceedingly irritating buffoon is Pradeep.

He’s talkative, whiny, insincere, childish, high-strung and clearly overcompensating for his height. But the truly irritating aspect of Pradeep’s character (because, let’s at least give him the benefit of the doubt that he’s truly not this obnoxious) is that he’s playing the game ass-poorly and still winning.

In episode 4, Scott, the show’s most dedicated and likable contestant, is inexplicably eliminated despite applying, albeit unsuccessfully, all of Mystery’s pickup techniques. Pradeep, however, manages to survive another elimination after he completely blows his assignment to score a kiss at a nightclub by desperately bribing women with VIP access and promises of free alcohol.

Pradeep’s presence is probably the result of a producer’s decision, a fact that my boyfriend wisely points out, and I’m desperately looking forward to his elimination (because if God truly exists and he loves me, Pradeep will get eliminated) because let’s face it, absurd disasters like Pradeep are fun to hate but only for a little while.