Love in the Fast Lane

For the first time in the show's ten years, I began watching the bachelorette this season. I took an interest in the show because it was filmed, partly, in Charlotte and the bachelorette herself is from Charlotte. I went into the first episode knowing that it was cheesy reality TV with lots of drama and flair for the sake of production. I was surprised at how quickly I got sucked into their evil mind games. After that first episode I found myself wishing I was Emily's BFF and rooting for her to find the perfect man she was so adamantly looking for.

But let's get real here.

On the previews for next week's episode, where there are only three lucky bachelors left, you see Emily crying about how hard it is because she's falling in love with more than one person.

DUH.

How could you NOT feel like you're falling for all these guys in this scenario? ABC hands you a gaggle of good looking, charming, successful men who are all bringing their A game to compete for your love and attention and then they fly you around the world to the most exotic and romatic places they could find while you get to know each other. It's kind of hard to get to know the real someone that you're with when everything is perfect.

I believe that its possible to fall in love with someone and know that you want to spend the rest of your life with them in 6 weeks. I believe this because that's about how long it took me to know that I wanted marry my husband. But how can you possibly even think you know that when you've never been put to the test? If you sent me to Barbados for a week and planned out/paid for several perfect dates then I would probably develop strong love-like feelings for the person I was with, too. But put me in a situation where me and that person have to make life-changing decisions, or raise a child, or even decide where we want to go on our date that evening, and we may very well endup hating each others guts.

If ABC really wanted these two people to fall in love and last forever, then the romantic dates would be combined with everyday things like grocery shopping, babysitting, budgeting, and yard work. Because those are the little stresses in life that ultimately determine whether or not two people can stand to be around each other for the rest of their lives.

Get it together ABC.