I have never watched The Bachelor before this season, and for a good reason. Something about having almost 30 women compete for a man’s attention did not seem appealing to me, it actually seemed pretty disgusting. Pitting women against one another trying to win a man’s heart should not be entertainment, and yet millions of viewers tune in every week to watch it. People, especially women, are unhealthily obsessed with this show so I decided to watch it to see what the hype was about, all thanks to my sister’s Hulu subscription.
The very first episode introduced the new bachelor, a man named Ben Higgins from Warsaw, Indiana. A boring man with a boring job who lives a boring life, but who cares because he’s hot, right? The women fight for his attention by trying to be memorable at their first meeting, but the only one who won my heart from that night was the cutest mini horse I’ve ever had the privilege to lay eyes on. Fast-forward to the end of the episode, and we’re left with 21 Mrs. Higgins hopefuls.
One woman in particular named Lace, God bless her soul, really gave women everywhere a bad name. She was crazy, unpredictable, and needed attention from Ben to live. She received the final rose in the first episode and was actually mad that Ben didn’t look her in the eyes the entire time. It’s safe to say that the producers of the show most likely made the Bachelor himself keep her around for entertainment purposes (because what’s better than forced love), which also feels like the same case with Olivia, a news anchor with an extremely large mouth. Literally. She has an unnaturally big mouth.
As I continued watching the episodes every week from my laptop in the comfort of my dorm room bed, I got completely sucked in. And I mean sucked. I hated every minute of the show but I couldn’t stop watching. What ridiculous thing will Olivia do next? Can I possibly love a human more than I love Jubilee? And why was Amanda single? Seriously. She’s perfect. But as the season went on and I continued to be pulled in, I realized exactly how much I hate this show.
How realistic is it that a man is going to find love out of a pool of 20 random hot women from around the country? Only five couples out of 31 seasons of "The Bachelor" and "The Bachelorette" are still together. That’s only percent So how is a show with that small of a success rate still airing? And why are people still going on it, knowing they have a 16 percent chance of actually finding love?
Not only is there a slim chance of making a real connection with someone after going on two one-on-one dates in front of an entire camera crew of strangers, but the women on the show haven’t been all that great towards one another either. I know I can only speak from my experience of watching "The Bachelor" and not "The Bachelorette", but the ladies competing for one man’s attention are downright awful to one another for absolutely no reason.
One episode that truly upset me was the one where they all ganged up on Jubilee, who was definitely my favorite and the most genuine one out of all of them. Sure, she couldn’t get her feelings across the way most people can and hid behind sarcasm but what made me extremely mad was that these women were judging her when they didn’t even know all of the hard things she’s gone through in life, one being losing her entire family in her home country of Haiti. One contestant, Lauren H., says Ben needs a woman who is going to bond with all of the other soccer moms and insinuates that Jubilee obviously can’t handle that role in a man’s life. Because what really matters in the end is how well a woman can pull off being a soccer mom, right?
