I don’t watch daytime television. It’s always struck me as a fantasy realm of phony judges and soap operas reserved for the unemployed and stay-at-home moms.

That was until Xavier, C.J. and Carl Henry — with considerable help from John Calipari, Rivals.com and three sets of rabid fan bases — turned a seemingly straightforward decision into “The Young and the Ambivalent.”

All the pieces for a Daytime Emmy Award are already there. The drama is real. The characters are decidedly human and the final outcome is anyone’s guess. By this time tomorrow, people are going to be waking up from comas to complicate a delicate situation even further.

All joking aside, the daytime-television parallels are a little eerie.

There’s the jilted lover (recruit) left standing at the altar and pondering the future: Xavier Henry. There’s the smooth-talking ladies man (recruiter) trying to keep as many beautiful women (blue-chip players) on his arm as possible: Calipari. There’s the other woman (recruit), waiting for the smoke to clear to make a decision: Lance Stephenson. Finally, there’s the patriarch keeping everyone guessing with a mixture of fact and conjecture: Carl Henry.

And then there are the rest of us: the audience held in rapture by this saga’s every twist and turn. It’s hard to watch, but it’s even harder to look away.

If you’ve somehow missed the most recent — and ridiculous — developments, Carl told the Lawrence Journal-World and Rivals on Monday that a decision was imminent and that no official visit to Kentucky would be necessary.

Only a few hours later, Carl reversed course, telling Zagsblog.com that Xavier informed him that he would be taking an official visit to Lexington after all.

To make matters even murkier, C.J. — who will most likely join Xavier wherever he ends up — spoke to Rivals later that day, saying that he hadn’t heard anything about a visit to Kentucky but that it was a possibility. Xavier, for his part, told TheShiver.com that he and C.J. would indeed be visiting Kentucky.

Finally, Rivals reported on Tuesday that the only sure thing was that Xavier would attend his senior prom this Friday night in Oklahoma. He could then leave Saturday to visit Kentucky, but Carl wouldn’t speculate about whether the visit would actually occur or when a final decision would be made.

Translation: The only guarantee is that there aren’t any.

So today, just like yesterday and the day before, Kansas and Kentucky fans will stayed glued to “The Young and Ambivalent” for the latest drama. They will scour Rivals for every tidbit of information possible.

They will do it because — like with any soap opera — it’s all about the suspense and what might happen, not necessarily the end result.

— — Edited by Chris Hickerson