“The Bachelor” is like Ebola. Until it’s close to home, you don’t really think about it.
Iowan Chris Soules, however, changed everything by bringing the process into our own backyard.
Dating as a competition? Helicopters as transportation?
All this was new to most Midwesterners who thought you just asked someone out and picked ‘em up in a car. Or a truck.
“The Bachelor,” however, used Iowa transportation for games and whisked women to New Mexico to give them a “real” taste of what it’s like to live in the tall corn state.
While Soules had been through this before – he was contestant on “The Bachelorette” – it was an awakening for the rest of us.
Arriving in limousines, the 30 women “vying” for his heart said whatever they could to attract his attention. One didn’t wear an evening gown in an attempt to show how “real” she was. Unfortunately, she drank too much and made the wrong impression. (At that point, Soules probably realized he didn’t have to dress up and move to Los Angeles just to find a drunk girl in jeans.)
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One by one, the women tried to impress the farmer with their “freelance” jobs, false eyelashes and fawning attention. Sadly, Chris never got to hear what they were saying in the holding room. That alone could have culled the herd substantially.
One did aerobics, one hid, one brought a container for human organs and all of them, bless their hearts, got praise from the man at the center of the storm.
Showing his Iowa “nice” side, Soules never lowered the boom – even though he should have. He led them on and convinced them Iowa farmers actually wear designer clothes when they’re not in the field.
He did a few stupid things, too (those exercise routines with hay bales were a hoot), and tried to show interest when the women rambled on about activities that had absolutely nothing to do with high school sports. But he didn’t apply Iowa standards to a Hollywood game.
Had he wanted to avoid all the foolishness (and the gamesmanship that suggested a couple of the women were crazy), he might have devised his own competition:
1. Clear the driveway after a blizzard. And get to work on time.
2. Plan a family event with two sisters who haven’t talked to each other in three weeks.
3. Withstand a weekend of silence because he’s too tired to do anything.
4. Create a substantial buffet for his deadbeat friends when they come over to watch the football game. And put up with their obnoxious girlfriends.
5. Clean the birds he bagged Saturday morning.
6. Accept him for who he is.
The premise – one person chooses another (who, apparently, isn’t a 50-50 partner in this deal) – is so odd it seems like the inspiration for “Fifty Shades of Grey.” It’s played out in a world that doesn’t exist for most people and it suggests extremely good looking men and women can’t get dates the conventional way.
Do a little research and you quickly discover “The Bachelor” hasn’t produced a lot of long-lasting marriages. But it has changed expectations – for many of the women who watch this thing.
Now, because of the show, men are expected to up their game. “Bachelor” fans think men should spend all their disposable income on trips to exotic places (like Deadwood, S.D.) and spend hours listening to them whine. They view life in Disney princess terms. They think it’s OK for their man to fool around with 29 other women as long as they emerge victorious.
The truth? The best day in a relationship shouldn’t be wedding day. It’s the day after wedding day. And the day after that day.
The guy doesn’t have to impress the girl with his sense of style or his creative dating attempts. As long as he’s good to her, that should be enough.
And when it comes to lavish gifts, folks in Iowa think they're a cover-up for something the giver doesn't want to reveal.
Here, it doesn't take "mystery trips," cocktail parties and rose ceremonies to profess love.
In Iowa, three little words will do.
