Musings of a Mysterious ManCredibility = 0. Opinions = 0 + Infinity.

Before I say anything else, just ignore the new title of the website - that is not permanent and only a part of an experiment.

But onto more important things, like the Bachelor. Back in high school, I semi-diligently watched a season or two with my mom, and admittedly, thought the show was pretty entertaining. At the time, I didn’t think much of it - I knew it was a pretty stupid show, but for some reason, it was relatively enjoyable to watch.

About 6 years later, I watched another episode of The Bachelor for essentially the first time since high school. Can you guess what comes next? My thoughts about The Bachelor!!!!

Since the last time I had really watched the Bachelor, alot had changed in my life - I am now a college graduate, married, working full-time, and focusing on making sure I don’t have kids anytime soon. I don’t think my opinion of the show really changed over 6 years, but I was definitely in a different place and for some reason, after hearing that this was the most watched Bachelor ever, I decided to really analyze this show. Here is my conclusion:

HOW THE FUCK DO WE STILL ALLOW THIS SHOW TO BE ON TELEVISION?!?!?!

Let me preface, once again, I was actually somewhat entertained by the show itself - they make sure to have a decent amount of hot girls, and anytime there is a developed “story,” it can be hard to ignore. But holy balls, when I sat back and really thought about what I was watching, I was genuinely floored at how extraordinarily worthless the general public has to be for a show like this to continue for years and years.

(I know I am not really breaking any ground here, but I still want to ramble…..)

Let’s just think about what we are watching - I’ll start with the basics - a person who thinks they can find true love among 25 people in a couple weeks. No sane person would ever think this is a good idea, but the fact of the matter is, it was an idea for a TV show that was expected to be entertaining, and honestly, you could argue that unless it has been tried, could you really know that this was a terrible method for finding “the one?” So starting out, the show had some worth - we expected it to be entertaining for obvious reasons and who knows, maybe you can find the one like this. After people watched the show, it was easy to see why on the surface this was such a great idea. Guys were (at least somewhat) drawn to the show by all the hot women, and the envy for being in the situation of the bachelor. Girls were drawn to the good looks and charm of the bachelor and wished they could have a fairytale ending with someone like him. After the “intensity” and drama of the first couple seasons, it seemed to a be a fair enough show - sure it was a little cheezy and over-dramatic, and certainly had its inherent flaws, but it was undeniably entertaining, and it hadn’t lost its credibility…….yet.

6 years later, after 15 of 16 failed attempts at “love,” the show no longer has any credibility (the 1 season that it did work was as much a fluke as someone walking into a bar and marrying the first hot person they see). This might be ok, because the show still has entertainment value, but the problem becomes that the show continues to take itself much too seriously - it is more than apparent that this is a TERRIBLE way to find “the one,” and yet we keep hearing, “the most dramatic rose ceremony ever,” and the same rhetoric from the bachelor about how much they are falling in love with this person despite only interacting with them 6 times, and 15 examples of why you shouldn’t be so sure.

Some people might still believe that, despite the show’s track record, this is a good enough way to find love, and it is definitely entertaining enough to warrant keeping the show alive. Well, after watching the show last night, something really hit me: how is it remotely acceptable that the method for this madness is to fall in love with two people (or more) at the same time (not to mention, be consistently “videod” making out/sleeping with them), and then pick one at the end (when they almost always fully admit to still having strong feelings for the other)? This is the show’s ultimate flaw - if the Bachelor really does only “love” one of them, then we should feel so pissed and annoyed that he/the show was just fucking with us the whole time by creating drama that isn’t real; if the Bachelor really does have strong feelings for both (which seems like the most likely situation), then there is no way the relationship can ever really work. Just imagine if all the relationships in your life happened at the same time, but you only had a few weeks to evaluate which one you liked most. Almost all relationships start off great (new car smell, anyone?), and having to pick, at that point in time, which one you want to MARRY (or at least STRONGLY commit to), is just incredibly dumb.

I could probably go on much longer, but I think everyone gets the point - this is one of the dumber shows on television, and should only be viewed for unintentional comedy purposes (like when Chris Harrison says that, “because tonight’s episode is so dramatic, so emotionally difficult,out of respect to the parties involved, we have chosen to make tonight’s taping as intimate as possible”).

Hey, they got me.