After much contemplation and soul searching, I've decided to watch Season 11 of "The Bachelorette" with my mom, just like I
watched "The Bachelor" for the first time with her last season. Predictably, there has been a great deal of drama in the house, with Bachelorette Jojo Fletcher playing host to two dozen frat boys in search of TV romance, and there have also been a few things that resonate with me, personally, as a 29-year-old single Mormon man.
Spoiler alert, if you're not caught up through June 2016.
Most recently, in this week's episode, one contestant named Wells faced the snarling dragon known as "expectations" and I legitimately felt bad for the dude. Let me explain a couple things.
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| #TeamJoj |
I was #TeamJoj before anybody. I'm fairly confident in that. I liked Jojo from the beginning of the last season of "The Bachelor," up until, hmm, about the point where we met her psychotic, overprotective family. It was all downhill from there. Her parents are crazy, her brothers are morons and she fell in love with Mr. Two-Timer, himself, Ben Higgins, who infamously told both Jojo and eventual winner Lauren individually that he was in love with them, then
dumped Jojo before proposing to the competition. Bad move, bro. So Jojo's heart was broken and she was subsequently chosen to be the next Bachelorette, which brings us up to Season 11.
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| #NeverForget when Wells almost died |
Wells, the man in question this afternoon, has always struck me as sort of a nerdy wimp and he hasn't contributed anything, really, to this season, other than his arrival in the season premiere, where he had a musical quartet following him around all night. Once the quartet was gone, so, basically, was Wells. ...Except for that one time when he helped throw Chad's protein powder into the wind... But, other than that, he made no real contributions to the show, had no real shot at winning this thing and he actually stuck in there longer than I thought he should have, so good for him.
But everything came to a crashing halt this week. (Watch this whole sequence
here.)
Wells, unlike most of the other guys in the competition, has a bit of self-respect and didn't try to kiss Jojo right off the bat. (This, by the way, is probably my biggest issue with these shows - the Bachelor or Bachelorette can kiss upwards of seven or eight contestants in a single night and nobody bats an eye. I sure hope Jojo carries around a case of mints or something. But yeah... If
I were to kiss seven or eight women
IN A MONTH, I'd be out of my mind. Heck, I might be lucky to kiss that many women in a full calendar year! Gosh, I hate this show.) I digress.
Anyway, We're now through five episodes and, heading into this week's show, Wells was the only guy remaining in the entire house who had not kissed Jojo yet. (Can you
imagine?? Looking around and you know that every other dude in the building has made out with your potential girlfriend? Nasty!) Jojo picked Wells to attend a coveted one-on-one date with her this week and everyone knew that if Wells didn't kiss Jojo during the course of that date, he'd be sent home. (No pressure.)
So the expectation is there - and if you're watching the show, you know that Wells better knock that sucker out of the park if he wants his kiss to compete with, say, Luke, who goes for Jojo's tonsils so hard that I sometimes have to avert my eyes. (Like... Luke, buddy... Get a room, man. We're verging on TV-MA, almost, dude.)
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| The second most awkward first kiss this season |
They go on the date and Wells seems awkward and nervous from the get-go. He's just not Jojo's type. Jojo needs a bad boy like Chad (who is gone now, thankfully, and I am appalled to read that some women actually liked him?!?) or Jordan (who I have picked to win, sadly). Not Wells. The guy, just like Evan and Alex and Derek and James Taylor and so many others should just be happy to be there. To make a long story short (too late), Wells eventually gets his kiss. Probably not the greatest kiss of all time (as though I'm an expert on the topic... lol frowny face), but he gets it. Like I said, he should just have been happy to get it in the first place.
After what we called in high school the "day activity," Wells and Jojo have a quiet dinner alone (with the camera crew) and Jojo breaks him the news. Thus quoth the Jojmeister:
I really do respect the way that you've approached this whole thing [waiting so long to kiss her]. And I feel like you and I have built this friendship. And today, I wanted to come out knowing what it was going to be like to have our first kiss. But... there was something that didn't feel 100 percent like I wanted it to. Knowing how much time we have, making these really hard decisions, today I had to face the reality that you are an incredible human being, but I don't know if you are the person that I will spend the rest of my life with. So, I am not able to give you this rose tonight, but I want you to know how amazing this has been to get to know you and how much I appreciate you. I'm sorry.
Ever the gentleman, the skinny DJ responds:
"I get it. This is important. This is decisions (sic.) you can't take lightly, and I... Yeah. You deserve to find true love, and I hope that you find it. I do hope that you find what you're looking for."
Wells is a nice guy, so he got up, gave her a hug and let her walk him to the car. And then he rode, eyes watery, off into the sunset, never again to be seen.
If she told
me that I didn't live up to her expectations, told me to take a hike and then offered to walk me out, do you know what I'd say? "No, thanks." You made your choice. See ya. And delete my number, by the way.
Anyway, too bad... Like, in the realm of the show, I really don't care that he's gone, but, on a personal level, I feel for the guy. Because I've been there a bunch of times. A couple weeks ago, I had a girl give up one me after one date. I thought the date was actually really good, but she texted me a couple days later to tell me that she didn't feel like we had enough in common to justify any further dates. (For the record, I was actually surprised by how much we had in common - she started singing along to
Huey Lewis and the News, for crying out loud! Who does that? I was definitely planning on asking her out again, but oh well. Whatever.)
If there are some unwritten rules about when you're supposed to kiss a girl (before Week 5, apparently) or when you're supposed to tell a girl that you love her (Week 4, apparently, for Robby), I'm not incredibly well-versed, so the fact that (some) women hold these expectations and cut guys loose the second that those expectations are not met bugs me. What was she expecting? That's what I'd like to know! Not every kiss is going to look like that total garbage they call "The Notebook." Note every first date is going to end in fireworks like on "The Bachelor." I don't know whether I'm whining here or making a point, but I guess I just felt bad for Wells as he got sent packing to the bittersweet tune of "Nice guys finish last."
Or, in this case, eighth.
In the Adios Montage that rolled as Wells hit the road, Jojo, through what I believe to have been tears, voiced her thoughts aloud:
I never thought that my first kiss with Wells could potentially be my last. ... And for him to tell me that he's so happy that he's waited to have this first kiss with me because it changed everything for him, and, you know, it changed things for me, too, but not in the same way. ... I really do hope that, after all of this, he knows what he deserves. Like, I want him to find that true love. I'll miss Wells. I hate nights like this. I think this is the first time that I realized how hard this could be. I can't imagine what these next few weeks are gonna be like, you know? Like, guys that I really, really like and care about, have strong feelings for... But if - this is one of my greatest fears - I feel like I, at the end of all of this, every goodbye that I've ever had to make, every tough decision that I've ever been forced to face has led me to the point where I am so in love with somebody... Like, what if that doesn't work out? It hasn't worked out any other time. I don't want that.
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| Don't Cry For Me, Argentina |
Now, hang on a second if you're starting to feel bad for the Joj-ster right about now because she is entering dangerous territory. Higgins Territory, you might call it. She was so devastated last season when Ben told her that he loved her, only to discover that he was
more in love with Lauren, to whom he proposed instead of Jojo in the season finale. Jojo currently has several men falling for her, including Derek, who she made out with minutes before she sent him home. Am I missing something? If you know you're choosing Chase and not Derek, why kiss
both of them? (I felt the same way with Caila last season when Ben slept with each of the final three women while only "loving" two of them. That's
still weird and wrong to me.) But then again, why
not make out with both of them? It's just a show, right?
So Jojo will head into Week 6 with six men remaining, but only one lucky guy will walk out victorious, doomed to a short marriage in the public spotlight. Who will it be? Only time will tell. In the meantime, I guess I'll get back to minding my own business and swiping left on Tinder.
