Bachelor Nation

by Amy Kaufman

  So why should the mountainside resort agree to be on the show? The producer says that, in 2003, The Bachelor often earned higher ratings than NBC’s The West Wing and attracted more viewers than the World Series. On average, she says, about 20 million viewers watched per week, putting Bachelor advertising spots at a value of $250,000 per 30 seconds. If the Resort at Squaw Creek were to be featured, she says, the segment would be worth more than $750,000 in advertising dollars.

  Then she gets into detailing the free stuff she actually wants. In exchange for all this advertising, the resort should host The Bachelor without any fees. Air travel—via private jet and commercial airliner—should be provided for two dozen cast and crew members. There needs to be lunch and dinner—alcohol included—for eight cast members, though a “simple hot meal” will suffice for the twelve crew members. The four executives, however, “will need a nice meal.”

  All cast activities, like dog-sledding, snow tubing, or ice skating, should be free. Ground transportation to the resort will be needed. And when the show is in production, entrances and exits must be closed to other guests.

  In exchange, the producer promises, The Bachelor will do at least one of three things: 1) Feature a chyron “at the lower one-third of the screen” identifying the resort when the cast arrives there during the episode. 2) Include an “in-story” mention in the episode—meaning a cast member will talk about how much fun they had at Squaw Creek. 3) A sign featuring the name of the resort will be shown during the episode.

  There’s no way the resort would agree to all that, right? Wrong. Usually, producers manage to get what they want, especially when traveling to foreign countries where the tourism board is eager to lure Americans on vacation. And if a Bachelor staffer can’t get the majority of a date provided for free, that date idea is typically just scrapped.

  Once the trade-out is secured, segment producers complete a full pitch that explains the highlights of the date and the beats that the crew is aiming to hit during the episode. So when The Bachelor ended up heading to the Resort at Squaw Creek, this was the plan:

  (Jack, by the way, is Jesse Palmer—the Dianes are the women he’s dating. Production often employs cutesy code names like this to keep things under wraps during filming—Sonny and the Chers, Lois and the Clarks, etc.)

  Date Pitch:

  Meets them at their pad: Our handsome prince picks up his princesses and drives them onto the airport tarmac; he stands there, studly, next to his hundred tons of steel, as the ladies board the aircraft. . . .

  The kids arrive to a winter wonderland: It is the ultimate play day and the ultimate ice-breaker (ba-dump bump).

  Snow Tubing: The kids walk over the base of the mountain, where 8 snow tubes and 8 outfits await them. Jack and the Dianes begin the date tubin’ the bunny slopes; the laughter is infectious as we see our gals and guy slippin’ and slidin’ down the side of the mountain. Who will get a ride with Jack????? Who will Jack pull aside for a hot cocoa? There will be a bench, blankets, and a bar set at this location.

  Next, Jack and the Dianes move over to a gigantic heated swimming pool. The main aim in this segment, it seems, is to show some skin, as the date pitch notes that the girls will “look like they just hopped out of a Smirnoff ad as they bare all (almost all).” Sipping Cristal, they get steamy in the hot tub and then come inside to warm up by the fire. The group cheers to a great day, the pitch reads, literally counting their lucky stars as they gaze up at the sky.

  Pretty standard Bach date. There’s an element that brings a wow factor—private plane. Anybody can rent a fancy car. But a “hundred tons of steel” feels unattainable—and it keeps the date moving, because traffic isn’t an issue.

  A five-course meal does scream luxury, except that ain’t nobody gonna eat it. It doesn’t look cute, and chewing doesn’t sound fantastic on a live mic. Plus, the cast is always able to get a private meal before or after the date if they want to avoid chowing down on-camera.

  Which is a shame, really, because these couples are often being offered high-end cuisine. Oftentimes, renowned chefs will walk out to the table to describe the dishes they have prepared for the lovebirds—dishes that some production assistant typically just digs into later, cold.

  Often, the dates on the show fit into a specific category. There are cultural dates, which almost always take place when the show is traveling. You’re in Ireland? Well, you’re probably going to go drinking at a local pub. Finland? Yep, you’ll be meeting Santa Claus—because that’s where all letters to the magical man are postmarked.

  Then there are charity dates, which, oddly, tend to be the raciest outings. Because any proceeds raised on these dates go to a good cause, producers have more leeway to ask cast members to behave in a way they otherwise might not. Remember that Models and Mutts date from Juan Pablo Galavis’s season, where the ladies posed in revealing outfits alongside rescue dogs? That was for charity.

  Then there are adrenaline dates. These are the kinds of dates that no one actually wants to go on because of the fear factor—but also the ones that usually bring a fledgling couple closer together. Maybe you rappel down the side of a skyscraper or go on a parabolic flight and float in zero gravity.

  “You release so many endorphins in those situations that when you’re in them with somebody you’re sexually attracted to, there’s this instant bond,” said a former segment producer. “You’re like, ‘We survived this!’”

  And the people who are sent on the adrenaline dates? Bingo! They’re exactly the ones who are most afraid of them. The crew scours the questionnaires that are filled out during the finals weekend to figure out which cast member is scared of what. “If you do an adrenaline date, you don’t want to send someone that loves heights and is an adrenaline junkie,” the producer continued. “You want someone who’s scared. And the reason they all go through with it is because they’re there to take chances. They say that over hours and hours of interviews, and now they’re being put to the test. That’s why they never crap out.”

  There’s some research to back this theory up, by the way. In 1974, psychologists Donald Dutton and Arthur Aron published a paper in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology titled “Some Evidence for Heightened Sexual Attraction Under Conditions of High Anxiety.” In it, they detailed what has since been dubbed the “Suspension Bridge Experiment.” The researchers sent eighty-five men, ages eighteen to thirty-five, across two different bridges. One bridge—let’s call this the scary bridge—was 5 feet wide and 450 feet long, made of wooden boards, and had “a tendency to tilt, sway and wobble” with low handrails that created “the impression that one is about to fall over the side.” The other, safer bridge, was built with sturdier materials, “did not tilt or sway,” and rested just ten feet above a rivulet.

  After crossing each of the bridges, the men were stopped by a young woman who explained she was working on a project for her psychology class. The men on the scary bridge filled out the woman’s survey using more sexual imagery than the men on the safe bridge did. The men on the scary bridge were also more likely to call the woman later. (She had given all the men her phone number.)

  “They proved that people in a more precarious position were more susceptible to romantic love,” explained Dr. Helen Fisher, who serves as the chief scientific advisor to Match.com and has written six books on love and marriage. “And, I would add, that is most likely because the precarious is the novel position—it’s going to drive up the dopamine system, so you’re primed. You’re ready to fall in love.”

  As a biological anthropologist, Fisher studies love for a living—what our brains look like when we’re falling for someone. So if you were on The Bachelor and started to feel butterflies in your stomach? There’d actually be a lot going on in your noggin. Because when Fisher put people who were madly in love into a brain scanner, she found a lot of activity in a factory near the base of the brain called the ventral tegmen
tal area. That’s where we produce dopamine—a natural stimulant that gives us motivation, energy, and focus.

  When you’re in love, that system goes into overdrive: You have the motivation to find a spouse, you’re filled with so much energy that you’re totally elated, and your focus on your new paramour borders on obsession. “Somebody’s now camping in your head,” Fisher explained.

  “People who are on the show have been primed,” Fisher continued. “Any kind of novel situation drives up the dopamine system in the brain. And reality TV is a state of real novelty. You’re suddenly in a house that you don’t know, with an awful lot of people you don’t know. You’re really fighting to win life’s greatest prize—a mating partner—and it’s going to happen rapidly.”

  Which invites the question: When you have that much dopamine pumping through your system, how are you supposed to differentiate between lust and love? Lust, as Fisher describes it, is our sex drive—the craving for sexual gratification that isn’t focused on a particular person. Love, however, creates a sort of euphoria. If you’re falling in love with someone, that person takes on a special meaning.

  “You don’t think obsessively about somebody when you just want to have sex with them,” Fisher said. “But any stimulation of the genitals can drive up the dopamine system and push you over that threshold into falling in love. When you’re on one of these shows, presumably they’re going to give you an array of the opposite sex who have the characteristics you’re looking for in a partner. And the timing is right. Everybody knows that you’re looking for a lover, a sweetheart. Proximity is right in front of you. There’s all these people milling about who want to go out with you. And the dopamine levels are going to be driving up because of the novelty, so it’s almost a perfect situation for people to trigger that brain circuitry for romantic love and be off to the races.”

  What can we take away from this, dear readers? If you go on The Bachelor, you’re fucked. In other words, even if you don’t think you’re susceptible to producer manipulation, even if you swear you’re just not attracted to that guy and his cheesy suits—you’re probably going to feel like you’re falling for him. Your brain is working against you.

  I’ve heard it from countless former contestants—otherwise rational people who felt like they had an out-of-body experience while they were on The Bachelor. In this vein, let’s examine one particularly disturbing incident that Clare Crawley had while dating Juan Pablo Galavis. For those of you who watched Juan Pabs’s season, you’ll probably recall that he wasn’t exactly the most beloved Bachelor. He didn’t propose to the woman he chose at the end of his season, Nikki Ferrell, and never told her he loved her either. He often dismissed the concerns of his would-be wifeys by repeating “ees okay” (it’s OK) over and over again in a condescending tone.

  And then there was what he did to Crawley. On her final date with Galavis, she was taken on a helicopter ride, because duh. At some point during the ride, astonishingly, the couple found themselves alone. As in, no cameras around. Crawley was shocked and took the opportunity to ask her quasi-boyfriend how he was feeling about the impending finale. (At this point, she and Ferrell were the only two women left standing.)

  “I was like, ‘It’s coming up! How are you feeling?’” Crawley told me. “And he goes, ‘I don’t know. I liked fucking you.’”

  I. Liked. Fucking. You.

  I mean, are you dead? I am six feet under.

  “But, girl, hear me out on this, OK?” Crawley said, sensing what must have been my very obvious disgust over the telephone line. “If you’re in a relationship with a guy and you love each other and he leaned over to you, like, ‘Babe, I love fucking you,’ you’re going to be like, ‘Fuck yeah! You better!’”

  Which, I guess? But he didn’t even say he loved fucking her. He said he liked fucking her. AND THEN HE SENT HER HOME THE NEXT DAY! How could she let this stand?

  “My gauge was so off and so skewed at that point,” she said. “You have the producers going, ‘Yeah, but I really do think he likes you, Clare. You should stick around.’ I’d just been in a crappy relationship before the show and didn’t have a strong sense of self, so I didn’t know. ‘Is this right? Is this wrong? Should he be saying that?’ In any other situation, I’d be like, ‘No. I need to talk to him for, like, five hours and figure this shit out.’ But you don’t get that opportunity. You kind of go into robot mode.”

  Even Sharleen Joynt—who left of her own volition a few episodes before Crawley got the boot—found herself falling under the show’s romantic spell. After her one-on-one date with Galavis on a private yacht, she wrote this in her journal:

  Everything is just so designed for romance, I can see how if you were single, didn’t necessarily know what you were looking for, couldn’t tell a deep connection from a superficial [one], and were somewhat naïve, hopelessly naïve and not very cautious, you could fall in love. The focus is so on it all the time. You’re constantly prompted to talk about him, what you two share, how it makes you feel, how seeing him with the other girls makes you feel. There’s no escape.

  Of course, she was able to escape, ultimately telling Galavis that the idea of a proposal seemed impossible to her. Others, like Crawley, had less of a grip over their emotions. Chris Bukowski told me that when he was on Maynard’s season—the first of his many Bach stints—he started preparing himself to propose to the Bachelorette even though he hardly felt ready.

  Before his hometown date, he was able to sneak into a hotel business center and get on the Internet. He immediately Googled his name, because he was on The Bachelorette and that’s the kind of thing these people do. When the results of his search popped up, he was surprised to learn that many fans were predicting he’d win the show.

  “And I’m like, ‘Holy crap. Am I going to have to propose to this girl?’” Bukowski said. “Before that, I didn’t think I was going to make it that far, so I wasn’t really preparing for that. But then I started freaking out, like, ‘I could totally marry her. I’m just going to have to figure out how it’s going to work.’

  “I was totally going to propose, for sure. One hundred percent,” he acknowledged. “That’s all you know, and that’s all you’re fighting for that whole time, and if you get to the end—I feel like that’s the whole reason you’re there.”

  Fortunately, Maynard let him go before he had to get down on one knee. But as we learned from Fisher, when you fall madly in love with someone—or feel like you are, anyway—you can overlook anything. The part of the brain that is associated with decision-making—the prefrontal cortex—actually begins to shut down when you’re crazy in love.

  “It’s called positive delusions,” said Fisher. “So you’ll say, ‘Well, of course my parents will like her. She comes from a different race that my mother hates, but my mother will get over it.’ But when you fall madly in love with someone, it is an addiction. It’s not insanity, but you can do pretty stupid things.”

  I think this helps to explain why so many cast members drop the L-bomb early on. And why the Bachelor or Bachelorette often seems slightly weirded-out to be hearing those three little words after, you know, two weeks.

  All of the attention felt unwarranted to Jen Schefft, anyway. “All these guys are coming on strong and telling me how great I am and I just—I was like, ‘I don’t believe you,’” said Schefft, who was chosen by Andrew Firestone before she ended up in the power position. “‘You don’t know me. You’ve never met me. Never talked to me. You’re just saying this for show purposes.’ I thought it would be so fun, but it was actually really uncomfortable and intimidating.”

  And yet, just a few months before with Firestone, she herself was in that very mind-set. She felt like the wealthy tire heir was the only guy in the world. She wanted his time and attention. She wanted to look her best, say the funniest thing, stand out in the crowd.

  “You just,” she said, “you just lose total perspecti
ve.”

  The perspective that leads you to question what’s happening inside your mind and your body—which steers you away from rational thought about life outside of the bubble.

  Why I’m a Fan

  DIABLO CODY

  I didn’t start watching The Bach until Chris Soules’s season. I’ve only been watching for about three years. I was totally cognizant of the phenomenon before that, but I was a very casual viewer, and I didn’t get hard-core until a few years ago when I officially stopped leaving the house and had to start entertaining myself in the evenings. And then I got addicted so fast. I was always more of a dirty Bravo reality-show girl, and it didn’t occur to me that something this juicy could be on ABC.

  There’s a psychological illness that seems to feed these women. It’s not like, “I’m going to come on this show and see if this guy is right for me.” They show up convinced that they have feelings for this person. I assumed that there would be contestants that left the show because they weren’t attracted to the Bachelor, and I’ve never seen that happen. You’re like, “Oh no, this is like a cult. These women are totally fucking obsessed with this guy and with winning.” And I think it’s because of masterful producing. There’s, like, manufactured Stockholm syndrome. It’s amazing.

  The women on the show are very aware of the rules of the show—these arbitrary rules created by a team of producers have become intertwined with their own reality. Like, I heard a woman on Nick’s season say, “If he sleeps with someone before the Fantasy Suite, I’m going to be hurt.” I was like, “Oh my gosh, she’s letting the production schedule dictate when it’s appropriate for him to have sex with someone.” Like, if it’s Fantasy Suite, that’s OK with her. If it’s not Fantasy Suite, it hurts her feelings. That is so bizarre to me.