Hero: The Bachelor

Last night, I serendipitously tuned into ABC, just in time to catch the final moments of The Bachelor. As someone who feels he has a fairly realistic understanding of the nature of love and marriage, I have a huge problem with this program, and others of its ilk. How in the world, it seems reasonable to ask, can a man be arrogant enough to believe that he can find true love within a pre-selected assortment of TV-ready pretty young things? Who are these women, willing to submit themselves to a contest that only one can win, and able to fall in madly in love with a man they know nothing more about than the fact that he’s a, sorry, the bachelor? And who ever wanted to make love a contest? (And why does this paragraph sound like Sex and the City narration?)
Needless to say, I’m not a fan of The Bachelor. But I was flipping and it was on and I seemed to recall something about the most shocking finale ever and here he was, on my screen, The Bachelor himself, on a platform, holding the hands of a finalist, about to break her heart or make her season-long dreams come true. I watched him break her heart, after which I think he asked her if she was mad at him (!), and then on to the next finalist. Logic, or contest rules, would dictate that this was his choice, the one he loved and would marry on some well-lit TV special. And then, the greatest thing happened. He chose none of the above.
So maybe this Bachelor isn’t so dumb. Maybe he realized that he didn’t want the kind of woman who would submit herself to this bizarre spectacle. Maybe he knew that, out here in real reality, a woman existed who could make him feel more than any of these wannabes. Maybe he’s just a consummate bachelor. Either way, he did what to me seems the reasonable thing to do, where most TV bachelors would pick a winner, ignore the point and deal with the reality when he gets there. So for this small gesture towards the meaning of love, he gets my hero tag.
I’d like to add how funny it was when, one second after the program ended, the promo for tonight’s reunion show began with, “It was the finale that shocked America!” One second later.