Season 17.5 & 17.6
Four hours of The Bachelor means one thing, Sean likes crazy. But it’s not just Sean. Men like crazy.
Bring back the medics; Tierra has hypothermia after the Polar Bear plunge. Jackie and Tierra have a two-on-one date, and gorgeous, sweet, perfect-for-marriage-to-the-right-guy, Jackie goes home. Selma has an awkward onscreen kiss, only to go home.
Adorable Catherine has her first one-on-one. I like her. The edits show her as level-headed, absolutely not crazy, and more importantly, not affected or feeding into the drama in the house.
After seventeen seasons of the bachelor I have finally figured out why I am single; it’s not “me,” it’s because men are “crazy" about crazy. Apparently providing for me and my family exclusively by myself, and more importantly without weekly household accidents, has proved to be a character flaw. Are you serious? Sad but true, I'm not a wounded bird; thus un-dateable to much of the single, emotionally available, male population.
However, I do have a boyfriend. How did that happen? Well, he thought I was crazy. A year and a half ago, 10 weeks after our first (but prior to our second) I had a rare moment of feeling like a failure. He sent me a text while I was in the middle of a break-down and I went “kaboom.” Why kaboom? To put this simply, it’s because I don’t own a ladder. Thus changing the batteries of my beeping, smoke detectors was impossible (for me.) And that was it. In my moment of weakness and tears (the beeping had been going on every few minutes for about 72 hours, and needless to say, at that point I was a sleep-starved basket case.) I roped him in, and then during our second date, I flipped the switch and he learned I really wasn't crazy. But it was too late. He was hooked. It was the best accident that ever happened to me and I owe it all to a single meltdown.
We all have our “moments,” and I'm sure many men, like my boyfriend want to rescue in some regard. However, the desire to rescue gets old because, as my boyfriend explained to me, it's hoped that the rescue phase will be short lived because the rescue would be successful. This makes sense; in other words, buy a ladder. Ok...then.
My boyfriend, after replacing a half-dozen smoke detector batteries, recently purchased a long stick for me because I had moved on to complaining about light bulbs. This stick has replaceable claws of varying sizes. With this stick, even without a ladder, the claw will grasp and twist high hanging light bulbs, and smoke detectors, etc. Sadly, the day he gave me the stick and a brief instruction, he did not change the dozen or so burned out lights because I hadn’t yet purchased the replacements and because I'm too stupid to figure out how to use it. I’m still waiting.
His text reply to me when I told him I wasn’t able to figure out how the righty tighty, lefty loosey, twisty twisty thing without unscrewing the replaceable claw instead of the item I’m grabbing, was simply, “Read the directions.” OK, I haven't done that yet but it's on my list of things to do.
Sean obviously wants to rescue, nurture, comfort, and love someone, and Tierra knows how to not just ask for this, but to demand this. She’s obviously read the infamous self-help book, “How to achieve a traditional boy meets crazy girl love story.” She didn’t read past the first chapter though, the one that said, “It will fade fast if the rescue doesn't fix her, because that means she wasn’t rescued.”
I'd like to think men really want someone who is independent and can change their own high hanging light bulbs by themselves or do it by calling a professional, which I’m very close to doing at this point. This is why, not too far into the relationship, the rescuer feels the wounded bird is fixed, because after all, she now knows him, but that’s when they flip the switch. That’s when our requests become ignored unless we nag.
Do we really have an example of a quality guy (emphasis on quality) who chooses the “needy” girl who ended up with her if she stayed that way aka crazy? Don’t make me bring up Jake and Vienna.
With that said, Sean admittedly had a miserable week in gorgeous Montana. Upon seeing the scenic photos I wanted to call my travel agent immediately, but instead I sent a text to my boyfriend "I want to go to Montana." His reply, "I do too." The discussion was closed.
Tension with Robyn and Tierra is escalating to the point where Tierra’s party manners were “off” at the Rose Ceremony. Sean saw. Despite this, Sean ultimately gave Tierra the benefit of the doubt and sent Robyn home (wearing a smashing indigo dress - everyone else is getting far more casual.) She's still my son's favorite. We live in Dallas, but at 21, he’s too young for her. Drat!
The truth is that everyone on Sean’s season seems to have lived through traumatic unthinkable events. We know about Tierra’s twelve year relationship with someone who had an addiction, Sara and AshLee, and this week we also learn that Des spent much of her childhood homeless. Catherine also reveals that she witnessed a peer die unexpectedly at age twelve.
What’s the difference between Tierra and everyone else? The difference is obvious.
Let’s move on but not forget that Sean certainly likes a girl who can be adventurous and rugged. He's had dates where they've gone down the side of high rise buildings, and rock climbing, not manufactured rocks, but desert rock climbing, assuming his date with Selma was in Mojave. Other dates included roller derby, canoeing, repelling, and now it’s time for the Polar Bear Plunge.
I would have never lasted on this season of the show. True, I will ride on the back of my boyfriend’s Harley for a day trip, but aside from that, I won't scuba. Snorkel in 3 feet of water in the Caribbean, yes, I did that at age nine, but to avoid wearing a swimsuit (my body was much cuter at nine) I'd rather be in a glass bottom boat with a cocktail. I'm not going to zip line, but since petting a dolphin requires a wet suit, I could possibly do that, provided it fit. Correction, sometimes I think I would like rock climbing, provided I were in an indoor environment. However, because I won't climb the pull-down access stairs in my garage to my attic, I’m probably not going to do it.
I’d go to an amusement park, fair, carnival, and love that, anytime, anywhere; I’m game. I love roller coasters and I’ll even go on one that goes upside down, but don't make me stand or hang my feet off. Lastly, don't make me sit in that ship ride at Magic Mountain. Emily and Brianna are far braver than I am. I've been on that ride. No bueno!
I am just wondering about the Double Rose Ceremony; two of them back to back are unprecedented, true? Why? This is my thought; I'm not an expert, so I may be wrong. I think the producers didn't think the viewing audience could go a long stretch of time with that much chaos in the house. In other words: play these two Rose Ceremonies over a three week period. No, I'm not hinting she goes home next week, or that she goes home at all. I think the producers just felt that unless something dramatic happens and he gets her out, or he moves forward with someone so obviously significant, we won’t care that Tierra’s still there and then they'd lose their viewers.
Even Sean was exhausted after Montana. He actually articulated that maybe he was wrong and his wife wasn't there.
Here’s another quick quip. Do you remember Wes? We were all so hot to see him go and some of us, many of us, stopped watching even though they tried to shake it up by bringing Ed back. Umm, now that we know everything, was Ed really an upgrade from Wes? Did the producers really do Jillian a favor? Anyway, that's my thought.
No one wants to watch Sean look defeated and frustrated. After the Roslyn incident, I remember hearing, reading, or getting second-hand information from a Bachelor producer interview. Apparently he said something like “Hey, if we get a few who aren't crazy that's good.” Well, that's a lie. But that's how I took it. I think he said if more than half were solid, that's a good thing.
