While we were all gorging on conversation hearts and red dye #40, The Bachelor aired a two-night extravaganza (a Chris Tells All special, an extra episode on Sunday night and the usual debauchery on Monday). By the time I got home from our weekend visiting family, I had 5 hours of The Bachelor sitting in my DVR. Five. Hours. I could have watched a Ken Burns documentary in that amount of time and learned something useful, but instead I slogged through the dates, tears, tattletaling and kissing that is the show we love to hate and hate to love. You’re welcome.
Don’t lose hope, Chris. The Bachelor bonanza is bound to end at some point; ABC needs the airtime for Dancing with the Stars.
I can’t say it was always pleasant. At one point I had been watching for so long that my DIY egg white face mask hardened into a cast and I almost self-mummified (thanks, Pinterest). Then, about halfway through, I ran out of Thin Mints and no, the Girl Scouts aren’t outside my local grocery store at 9pm. Who knew? Factor in the usual pause time for mocking Chris’ laugh and rewind time for “wait, which girl is crying now?” and it took nearly 6 hours to get through it all. Three of the women left on the show could have had breast augmentations in that amount of time. I could have finally finished reading War and Peace or found out how many licks it takes to get to the center of a Tootsie Roll Pop. We’ll never know because, instead I watched The Bachelor.
This got me thinking. The average season of The Bachelor has around 15 episodes including specials. That means over 19 seasons we (okay, I) have watched approximately 570 hours of this show. That’s not including The Bachelorette, Bachelor Pad or Bachelor in Paradise. I don’t know if I should be proud or embarrassed. Okay, I’m embarrassingly proud. Embrace it. Even still, I can’t help but ask myself what else could I have done with that time. Allow me to present, 7 things that take less time than watching The Bachelor (as illustrated by the 7 women remaining at the beginning of this bachelor binge).
Preach, Judge Judy. source
1. Breaking Up
Breaking up is hard to do, but that’s no reason not to buckle up, Megan.
Megan has been a source of joy to me this season. She had hilarious commentary during her interviews and her sombrero clad Macarena dance will always be dear to my heart. Unfortunately for Megan, that’s the only heart she’ll be winning this time because she was sent packing in the first 4 minutes of the episode. It only took 4 minutes for Chris to break up with her! Are they telling us the entire season could be told in 3 hours (including real-time Fantasy Suite action and commercials for Jimmy Kimmel)? Her dismissal from the show took 0.013% of the episodes aired over the two nights. That’s less time than it takes Chris to shuck an ear of corn (says my imagination).
2. Taking A Road Trip
After Megan was sent home, Chris and the remaining 6 women finally left the dusty streets of Deadwood, South Dakota behind and made their way to exotic Des Moines, Iowa. I haven’t always been kind to good ol’ Iowa, so I must take the time to say that Des Moines looked lovely. (The Iowa tourism board can reciprocate my endorsement through my personal Paypal account. Thanks.)
While in Des Moines a few of the women found themselves with a little extra free time so they commandeered a car/camera crew and road tripped to Arlington to do a little reconnaissance. According to my map app, that drive should take just under 3 hours. You know, 2 hours LESS than the amount of footage they aired over two nights. I could have driven from Des Moines to Arlington, run for Mayor, inseminated a cow and been back for dinner (supper?) before Chris handed out his last rose. 
During that road trip, Carly (you remember Carly, her eyebrows look like upside down slices of cantaloupe) really started to lose her patience with Bachelor’s pet, Britt. She felt like Britt made it clear that she straight up hated small town Iowa and didn’t want to hear her say one word otherwise, because people never speak out of turn or change their minds. EVER.
Personally, I loved Carly this season. I thought she was super hilarious and she never failed to deliver gif worthy reaction shots to the house shenanigans. In fact, while we were enduring watching the episodes, my husband referred to her as “Judgy McGee” to which I replied, “I know. I love her.” Unfortunately, she chose to spend her date time with Chris warning him about Britt’s ill intentions. Future contestants of America and sometimes Canada, NEVER DO THIS. You are automatically friend-zoned and sent packing; which is exactly what happened to Carly.
I’m going to miss that sarcastic little face so much.
3. Ugly Crying
Speaking of 90’s Barbie Britt, do you know what takes less time than watching The Bachelor? Turning from a really fun and confident woman into a hot mess of ugly tears. Believe me, I’ve been there. You should have seen me when I watched this youtube proposal . Britt really got the wind knocked out of her tied-flannel-shirt-clad sails when she didn’t get the rose during group date this week. She felt like Chris betrayed her by giving the rose to Kaitlyn when Britt had just shared all her hopes dreams with him. Britt, Britt, Britt, you can’t expect the man you’re falling in love with to treat you differently than other women. This is The Bachelor! You have to suck it up and pretend that hearing about his dates with your roommates is perfectly normal. What were you thinking?
You know you can’t tell them apart either. source
Well, it turns out that she was thinking she was outta there and she was right. I think Chris is the one that broke up with her, but she also said she was going to break up with him so who gets the credit? I feel like I need to go back to my middle school advice columnist and ask for clarification. Oh wait, I was the advice columnist for my middle school. Yeah, I wasn’t so good at it back then either.
Britt, like all of the chattel contestants, is a beautiful woman. But she can ugly cry with the best of them. As she was leaving, she transformed her face from smiling and lovey-dovey heart eyes to the sad face on a comedy-tragedy mask tattoo after weight-loss surgery (think really sad and really droopy). She also managed to do it faster than a single commercial break during this marathon of Bachelor viewing.
4. Spilling Your Biggest Secret
Once Megan, Carly and Britt were sent packing, it was finally time for hometown dates. Chris, our bachelor, took his four remaining women back their hometowns to meet their families and get a better sense of who they are in the real world. You know, because visiting someone’s hometown is so much less romantic than a trip to Mount Rushmore. (I’m really bitter about the lame travel locations this season. Can you tell?)
I actually can’t remember what order the hometown dates happened in because my brain had turned to jelly by hour 4, but I do know that at some point Chris made it to Nebraska to see Jade. Jade has been a sweet and simple addition to this season, but this episode we finally got to hear about her wild side which the show has been alluding to for the past few weeks.
Chris’ vest doubles as a life jacket if a tsunami suddenly hits Iowa.
In the first 127 3 hours, Chris took Jade home to Arlington, Iowa to visit his farm and old high school stomping grounds. She seemed to fit in very nicely to his small town and hardly blinked when she realized that there isn’t a single restaurant or open store in a 20 mile radius. This earned her a hometown date to Nebraska where she finally had the chance to introduce her potential husband to her family and tell him about her past as a Playboy model. Say what? Yep, sometime after talking to her younger brothers and meeting her mom, Chris was told Jade’s worst kept biggest secret; she has posed nude in the past.
It appeared to be a really difficult thing for her to discuss and she seemed genuinely embarrassed, which made me sad because I’m sure her name is being hurriedly googled across the time zones. However, when spilling her biggest secret, she chose to pull out her laptop and show him the pictures along with a making-of video. I was cringing, Chris was cringing, I’m sure somewhere even Hugh Hefner was cringing in his silk smoking jacket. It was awkward and it STILL took less time than finally seeing host Chris Harrison on screen this episode.
5. Boring Me To Tears
Yawn. Hour 12,435 of The Bachelor and it’s time for a break from the action into normal dating land. That must mean super cute, Boring Becca is back. I didn’t even take a screen grab of Becca from this episode because I was too busy holding my eyelids open during their two boring dates. I’m pretty sure she wore a cute yellow peplum top at one point and Chris made out with her in a ferris wheel after meeting her family. If that doesn’t ring a bell, picture a cute blonde with a perfectly pleasant personality. Oh and she’s a virgin. I’m pretty sure that’s all we are going to hear about her for the rest of the season, because clearly a woman has nothing more interesting to offer to a conversation than an explanation of how she has used her genitalia thus far in life.
Even Chris’ discussions with her family while on the hometown date seemed to center on how they had never seen Becca be physically affectionate towards a man. The poor thing, I almost felt like her virginity was being advertised to increase her bride price, or maybe that was my cynicism showing. I can really only keep it hidden for 3.5 hours of this show and we are well past that.
Chris and Becca seem to have a genuine connection. She is starting to throw the “L” word around which is big because, I seem to remember her mentioning that she has never been in love before. Well I can tell you what I’m not in love with, their ability to bore me to tears with their normal date in a fraction of the time I dedicated to this mess. If I wanted to experience a normal date I would have paid attention to my husband at dinner last week instead of playing Trivia Crack. (j/k I was playing against him. Aw, love.)
6. Making An Unnecessary Grand Gesture
Kaitlyn has made quite an impression on our Bachelor Chris with her crass jokes and unflagging confidence. She seems like one of those girls who is up for anything and Chris loves that because, back home there is literally nothing else to do other than plant corn and build baseball diamonds for ghosts. (You can quote me on that, I saw Field of Dreams.)
This week we witnessed Kaitlyn open up to Chris in a more serious way which led to him giving her a hometown date. Speaking of hometown dates, why did Chris’ voice overs only introduce like half of the family members in the rooms on each of the dates? What did grandma do that was so offensive, Chris? You had 37 hours of airtime this week and you couldn’t give the lady her 15 seconds of fame? Think carefully, Kaitlyn. Can you imagine a future with someone so selfish? What do you think he’ll be like at Thanksgiving ? He won’t be making a relish platter with Grandma, that’s for sure.
Kaitlyn couldn’t quite commit to professing undying love to her quasi-boyfriend of 7 weeks so she kept saying she “hearts” Chris. She went so far as to have a billboard put up in her hometown of Phoenix declaring exactly that. I imagine the effort of calling the advertising company, uploading the digital billboard and driving Chris to the big reveal couldn’t have taken more than a couple of hours. You know where I’m going with this; Kaitlyn’s grand romantic gesture took less time to execute than fast forwarding through just the angsty glances shared at the cocktail party.
Not even John Cusack’s arms could hold that boom box up through all of these dates. source
7. Making A Joke About Superior Sperm
Earlier in the decade episode, Whitney and Chris deepened their connection while on a date in Iowa. They practiced their photography, met some of his friends for wine and got to first base under a mural painted of them on the side of a building. All while half the population of Des Moines took selfies in the background. Chris happily gave her a rose and was soon joining her in Chicago to see where she lives.
You know how companies have take your children to work day? Well Whitney really took that to heart when she introduced Chris and his potential baby making ability to her career as a fertility nurse. Yes, that means she made the requisite joke about leaving a sample of his sperm in the surprisingly sterile collection room. Do you want to know how long it took Chris to make a joke about being confident that his “soldiers are marching.” I’m not positive, I had thrown my stopwatch across the room by this late hour, but I’m estimating that it was something like zero seconds.
Whoa, Whitney can’t you tell I have perfect sperm by how good I look in this plaid scrub cap?
The strangely beautiful couple (the embryos Whitney will genetically alter Gattaca style will be really good-looking) met up with Whitney’s friends and family that evening. Everyone seemed really easy going except for her sister who would not give her blessing to Chris to potentially propose to Whitney. She had some explanation about not wanting Chris to be dating other women at the same time that he was proposing to Whitney, or something completely ridiculous like that. The nerve. After, the happy couple watched her small dog hump a stuffed animal while they canoodled on the couch. It was like they were watching their own version of The Bachelor only much, much, much faster.
I’m glad I have a week to recover from this marathon. I know I’ve been super subtle about it, but this was too much Bachelor for two nights. I need to detox. I’m going to watch 60 Minutes and read The Economist to make myself feel better about the world and the future of my brain cells.
Don’t worry though, I can’t stay away forever, next week they’re finally leaving the states! It looks like they’ll be in Bali for their overnight dates and we’ll finally see the ocean. Wait, is that it? Chris can’t swim! Mystery solved. Yes, I just made that up.
Who do you think the top two finalists will be? Will Becca be sacrificed on a volcano when she tells Chris she is a virgin? Are there volcanoes in Bali?
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