What I Secretly Learned From The Bachelor and The Bachelorette

You know how you can say you would never watch something, but then you secretly watch it and realize you were a bit too judgy too soon? Welcome to my Bachelor-watching world! Or as host Chris Harrison would say, Bachelor Nation.

The First One

That being said, (and more on that catchphrase later on), let’s start at the beginning. When I first heard of The Bachelor, I scoffed. One man and numerous women? It was a harem! What about women’s lib? How could anyone watch such a mockery of the search for true love? I told myself and anyone listening that I would never spend my valuable time on such a thing.

And yet…I’m pretty sure I was there for the first episode. We were in that awkward phase between having thrown out the VCR and not owning a DVR, and the internet was not what it is today. So, if you snoozed on the couch after a hard day at work, you literally lost the episode and had to watch entertainment shows for highlights.

I picked my favorites right away. But I told myself that I wasn’t being superficial. Nay, I was digging deep into everything I learned in my college psych classes to analyze each person’s character traits to help this man and one of these women find love. I was practically a matchmaker, and I was so, so good at it.

I firmly believe we humans have intuition that we don’t always heed in our own interactions with people. However, when we see other folks in relationships, all the red flags are blazing and the answers are crystal clear.

Sitting on our couches, we can tell when someone is basing too much on attraction, and not giving enough thought to personality or livability. Or if they are caught up in the gameshow mentality and just want to win, not foreseeing how the prize could alter their lives. We observe every quirk that signals it’s not a good match.

But for the people on the show, there’s a lot to decide in a very short amount of time. Each glance, touch, and theatrical date is heavily weighted. I took it all in, just as it was presented to me by the producers and editors, and by the contestants themselves when it was time to film their confessionals.

That is how I sadly surmised that the first bachelor and the lovely woman he chose wouldn’t last. And I was right. I didn’t gloat about being right, though, because I couldn’t talk to anyone about it…not without revealing that I actually watched the show. It was a lot to hold in, and I was dying to let it out.

The Girl One

After a couple of boy bachelor seasons, the network must have read my mind about women’s equality, and they switched things up by having The Bachelorette choose from an abundance of young, attractive men! I couldn’t wait to see how much better she would be at picking.

The feminist in me cheered! But the young girl in me, who grew up being told that boys need to be the ones calling to ask for a date, kind of wondered how this was all going to work. Since she was the one handing out the roses, would she also have to get down on her knee to propose?

All my questions were answered during the first run of The Bachelorette, and I was glued to the couch each week. I saw her making frankly good choices…hard choices that hurt people’s feelings but nonetheless were best for all involved. Somehow watching her have the strength to go with her gut until she found her happy ending (or beginning, I should say, as they are still together), reminded me that a woman applying her intuition to her own life was doable and preferable. It was time for a happy beginning for me, too.

The Middle Ones

The following seasons were hit and miss – mostly hit and some miss. I, like a plucky bachelorette, was paying heed to my intuition and analyzing my life. I realized that I needed to make some hard choices that not everyone would like. I walked away from a marriage that needed to end, and embarked on a new journey as a single mom.

There were many weeks I was so exhausted by the mental and emotional upheaval, I forgot that TV even existed. But when I was able, the bachelors and bachelorettes were there for me. It became even more important that these lovely onscreen people find true love, because that meant that finding true love was possible, even for me.

I also happily distracted myself by trying to uncover other people who were watching the show. It wasn’t easy, as no one sitting in the lunchroom at work could ever admit they watched The Bachelor. And yet, there were subtle clues.

That being said, one of the biggest clues was the phrase, that being said. It’s not as if the phrase never existed before The Bachelor, but I honestly can’t remember ever hearing it on any other show or in any natural conversation prior. It grew into the go-to segue to the inevitably comingled joy and rejection of the rose ceremony, and even some of the one-on-one conversations. Sometimes it was good, as in, “That being said, will you accept this rose?” But it could also be bad, as in, “You possess all these great qualities, etc. That being said, I need to go with my heart and you’re not in it, etc.”

In the workplace and at my child’s school functions standing around with the other moms, my ears perked up each time I heard that being said. It was a signal that they watched, and just like my matchmaking skills, my intuition was never wrong. I found some co-watchers that I could finally dish with if, and only if, we were out of earshot of absolutely anyone else who might hear us. It was glorious.

Another telling clue was The Bachelor joke. I have found over the years that people who repeatedly make jokes about something have a hidden affinity for whatever it is they’re joking about. A simple quip sitting around a large table might sound like this, “Haha, I feel like I’m at a rose ceremony, haha, not that I watch that show. I just happened to catch a glimpse when I was flipping through channels.”

My thoughts: Yeah, right. Those rose ceremonies are long; there’s no way you could learn enough about it to make a joke if you were just flipping through. But no judgement here. Let’s go somewhere quiet so we can talk about what happened on last week’s episode!

The Later Ones

My life improved as the bachelors and bachelorettes went through their own rose petal laden journeys. As I became more comfortable in my own single skin, I felt less of a need to hide my innocent guilty pleasures…even from my quickly growing daughter.

My daughter was no stranger to reality TV, but I had kept her exposure very limited. One summer when she was younger, our cable company decided to charge more for The Disney Channel, and I refused to dish out the extra cash. So, I picked the most benign shows I could find…house hunting, wedding dress shopping, and wedding planning…and those became the bedrock of our summer. I thought it was a logical next step from the princess movies that ended in a wedding. And, if she grew up to be a wedding planner, I could take all the credit!

But now she had grown into a young woman, and I noticed her hovering close by when The Bachelor was on. Most of our best talks had happened while watching TV together or driving in the car. My daughter was a good, kind person with a strong sense of right and wrong…but was she ready for The Bachelor?

Judge if you will, but I decided she was. Also, like all parents know in the digital age, it’s not like she couldn’t watch it on her own. So we watched together, indulging in the giddiness of the guilty pleasure. When it was time for the show, one of us would glance at the other and say, “Should we?” As in, should we do this fun thing together that will distract us from the long, challenging week of work and school? The answer was always yes.

It turned into one of the best free dating classes ever. We tried to steer clear of the pervasive judginess most kids and adults live with today. As I’ve told her too many times, we don’t need to hear every person’s thoughts about every single thing – most of them negative and spiteful. Instead of focusing on the looks and clothes, we discussed the inner workings of people and relationships. One of our go-to phrases was she (or he) deserves better. We saw the temporarily breaking hearts as merely a step toward something greater. Such a profound life lesson for us both! And, if someday my daughter’s precious heart breaks, it is my hope she will remember that she, too, deserves better.

The Ones I Foresee in the Future

I’ll admit my header for this section is slightly misleading, because I can’t really foresee the future. Will something so tragic and unforgivable happen on one of these shows that the whole world calls for an end to the genre? Will society shift towards privacy, making it harder to find people willing to bare their vulnerabilities?

I don’t know. What I do know is that we, the collective we of human existence, like to feel hopeful. We like to feel connected to others, and to see those we care about succeed. So I think we will keep tuning in to real-life characters in their search for love, hoping that they find it. And if they ever decide to launch a Divorced, Middle-Aged, Single Mom Bachelorette, I just may apply.