Bachelor Nation

by Amy Kaufman

  The crowd, primarily comprised of young women, had arrived as instructed: in attire one might wear to a cocktail party at the Bachelor mansion.

  I sat down in some very modern chairs with some ladies who were waiting for the official group photos to begin. Two twenty-one-year-olds, Victoria Jaskiewicz and Bella Villaca, told me they’d driven about an hour from nearby Kansas in the hopes of getting to know some of the contestants better.

  “Hopefully, I could be best friends with some of them,” said Jaskiewicz, who was wearing a form-fitting minidress and some booties. “I definitely could vibe with some of them.”

  “Going shopping with some of the girls would be nice,” chimed in Sheena Keuhn, a thirty-one-year-old sitting nearby who had trekked nearly three hours from Milan, Missouri, for the event. She was wearing a black dress with cutouts that she had purchased specifically for the night from Simply Dresses—a company she found after twins and former contestants Emily and Haley Ferguson promoted it on their Instagram accounts.

  “Amanda’s here!” Jaskiewicz said, pointing toward Amanda Stanton, who had just arrived with her then fiancé, Josh Murray. “Everyone’s, like, swarming! She’s the sweetest person ever. Who doesn’t love Amanda?”

  I asked the ladies if they felt like the contestants were as famous as popular celebrities like Kim Kardashian, Leonardo DiCaprio, or Lady Gaga.

  “I feel like they’re just as famous to me,” said Jaskiewicz. “They’re idolized by a lot of people—millions of people around the world. So that makes you famous.”

  “Do you feel like they feel awkward too?” Villaca said, observing fans bombarding Stanton and Murray. “I don’t want to be like, ‘Hey, I’m a huge fan of yours! I watch every movie that you’ve done.’”

  Before anyone could answer, Jade’s voice came over the speaker system: “If I could get everyone’s attention, I need everyone to be really quiet,” she instructed. “I know all of you are VIP and the reason you’re VIP is because you want a picture with the whole group at the step-and-repeat. So I need all of you just to make a line and we’re just gonna go quick, quick, quick! And it’s all gonna be available for you online.”

  Nearly the entire room made a beeline for the photo area—a kitchen surrounded by walls of wine racks. Before each attendee got their turn, they were handed a red rose to show off in their picture.

  Four girlfriends who’d met as roommates at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville—roughly a four-hour drive from Kansas City—queued up immediately.

  “We saw the Instagram post about this on Jade’s account and then we were like, ‘Guys, we have to go,’” explained Abby Bridges, twenty-one.

  “I got out of class at eleven fifty this morning and then we came right from there,” added Ashley Mason, also twenty-one. “I just want to have, like, short conversations with them all and take some pictures. Just to see how they’re doing in real life, now that they’re not on the shows.”

  “Yeah, just seeing them in real life—when I first saw them walking in, I was like, ‘This is crazy,’” Bridges said.

  By the following morning, when I looked the roomies up on Facebook, Mason had already made a photo of herself with Ashley Iaconetti her profile picture.

  “You got to meet Ashley I!!!!! So cool!” one of her friends commented below the shot.

  “How was she in person?” asked another.

  “She was really cool!” Mason responded. “I’m glad we went :)”

  Plenty of fans got pictures like this, but the biggest bragging rights of the night went to those who ponied up during the auction. That’s right: Jade had organized for the single Bach contestants to go on thirty-minute “mini dates” in the cabanas with whoever paid the most for the honor.

  James Taylor—the singer-songwriter from JoJo Fletcher’s season who was, unfortunately, far less musically talented than James Taylor of “Sweet Baby James” fame—brought out his guitar case in an effort to secure the highest bidder.

  “I can’t wait to sing for one of you,” he promised. “I’ve got something pretty cool prepared.”

  As it turned out, his mini date went for the most by far—a whopping $2,500. Iaconetti, who was serving as the emcee, had a more difficult time drumming up support for Wells Adams and JJ Lane.

  “You never know how far you’re gonna get with JJ. He is looking for a girlfriend tonight!” she teased. “You guys, JJ is gonna treat you like a princess, and he’s gonna let you vent to him no matter what state you’re in. . . . He is a mush ball. He is always there for you. And he gives the best massages eeeever! You guys, it’s for orphans. Orphans!”

  Lane eventually secured $700; Adams went for $650.

  Around eleven p.m., when the fans had dispersed, Jade told the Bach alums that she’d planned for them to get a table at a nearby nightclub and invited me to tag along. At age thirty, I had been to maybe one nightclub in my entire life, but obviously I felt I had to attend for the experience. So we all piled into the elevator and walked over to Mosaic, a so-called ultra lounge that describes itself on its website as “downtown Kansas City’s premier destination for cocktails after work” with “soft seating, Champagne by the glass, and an outdoor balcony.”

  We bypassed the line and were led to a small booth covered with bottles of Belvedere Vodka. Nelly’s “Ride Wit Me” blasted overhead. The group smushed into the booth except for Taylor, who had brought along a gaggle of women all eager to buy him drinks. It was too loud to hear anyone, and Stanton, looking tired, rested her head on Murray’s shoulder. I knew I should stick it out for the cause—the cause being you, dear readers—but after thirty minutes, I ducked out and went to get a slice of pizza. I’m just not meant for that club life, y’all.

  I proceeded to take a few months off from the event circuit, but I dove back in last January, when Iaconetti told me about a charity event she herself was putting together in L.A. with Sarah Herron. This one was to benefit ovarian cancer research and SheLift, Herron’s organization that seeks to empower girls through outdoor activities—and the tickets were far pricier. I paid $126 just to get in, and if you wanted a reserved table with a Bachelor shirt, roses, and three bottles of wine from the Bachelor collection—yes, that’s a real thing—you had to pony up even more dough.

  The event coincided with the premiere of Nick Viall’s Bachelor season, and sixteen show alums were scheduled to appear. The night took place at Sycamore Tavern, a sports bar on Sunset Boulevard that isn’t particularly trendy, but had agreed to donate its space for the evening. Iaconetti and Herron had also rounded up a fair number of other sponsors: Sprinkles cupcakes, FabFitFun, and Match .com.

  Most of the fans who showed up at the Hollywood bar seemed to have the same aim as those in Kansas City: selfies. But this L.A. crowd was way more aggressive. Instead of mingling with the plebes, most of the Bach crowd started off the evening upstairs in a private green room. Subsequently, the fans had gathered en masse around the door leading to this VIP area, and every time a contestant would emerge, total pandemonium ensued. It was almost impossible to move anywhere, and I was reminded of how I felt when I attended my first Hanson concert in 1997: hot, anxious, and generally overstimulated. Nearly every young woman was dressed in sequins and had heavy, filled-in eyebrows. There were so many LuMee cases.

  The most disturbing incident I witnessed occurred when one twenty-year-old from Manhattan, Vera Antebi, approached Chase McNary—another veteran of JoJo Fletcher’s season. After taking a photo with him, she proceeded to grab his hand, tousle his hair, and pinch his cheeks—all while filming herself doing so on Snapchat. This would have been less weird if McNary had been aware of it, but he was surrounded by so many other selfie-seekers that in the midst of taking photos, he barely seemed to notice a girl was filming herself touching him.

  “Look at all of these comments. My friends are bugging out,” Antebi said, showing me her phone. She had come to L.A.
with her friends on her winter break from Monmouth University.

  “We asked Jade how long the rose ceremony is on average, and she said eight hours,” Antebi continued. “They’re all so genuinely nice, and that’s what I really like about them. They want to keep the conversation going, you know? None of them are like, ‘OK, done with the pictures.’ They’re just so nice, you know?”

  Indeed.

  Because the Sycamore Tavern was far closer to my house than One Light Luxury Apartments, I departed after only an hour at the bar. I mean, seen one Bachelor event, you’ve seen ’em all, no?

  Well, not quite. A month later, with Valentine’s Day approaching, an invite showed up in my work email inbox alerting me to a Bach-related event at the Hotel Bel-Air. Yes, you read that right: Mindy Weiss—the celeb wedding planner who has designed all the televised Bachelor nuptials—was co-hosting a “Galentine’s Day Party” with Bachelorette Kaitlyn Bristowe and a stationery company called Wedding Paper Divas. Bristowe was one of my favorite Bachelorettes, and the Bel-Air is one of the nicest hotels in town, so this felt like a definite “yes.”

  I rounded up a few of my gals, and we drove over to the five-star hotel, where actual white swans greet you upon arrival. Immediately, this felt different from the previous Bach events. A concierge led us to the Herb Garden Suite, an 1,800-square-foot room with vaulted wood ceilings and French windows, which goes for around $5,000 a night.

  Inside, Weiss had set up a truly Instagram-worthy scene. Pillows on the couch, created by Shutterfly, read YAASSS QUEEN and FIERCE. One young woman sat in a pink club chair, having her caricature drawn by artist James Malia. There was an entire table set up filled with stamps, stickers, and notecards where someone named Calligraphy Katrina would write whatever you wanted in beautiful lettering on a DIY valentine. Liz Castellanos, who said she did the makeup for all the hosts on E!, was on hand to apply fake lashes and lip touch-ups. And of course, no party would be complete without a photo-booth room: This one was filled entirely with balloons shaped like flowers.

  There were also no outright fans in attendance—only fashion types and magazine editors who planned to cover the event. Bristowe was dressed casually, sporting a black choker and tank top with a skull on it. “I feel so underdressed,” she admitted when Weiss called her up in front of the room. The pair thanked everyone for coming, and Weiss encouraged guests to check out the “beautiful moments” throughout the room. My friends and I noshed on french fries that came in “fries before guys” holders and gossiped about what Bristowe got out of doing the event. It was clearly a classy affair, and she probably got a free trip to L.A.—but was there something more at stake? Maybe a connection with Weiss, should she want to get married to Shawn Booth down the line?

  I wasn’t able to ask her directly, because every time I tried to approach her, she magically disappeared into some other corner of the huge suite. My friends agreed that it seemed like she was dodging me. (She had, sadly, already declined an initial interview request.) This was disappointing, but I cheered up when, upon departing, we were handed very pretty miniature bouquets designed by Mark’s Garden and a box filled with candy and Champagne.

  Had I seen all the post-Bachelor event world had to offer? It felt like something was missing. And like clockwork, that very something soon popped up on my Instagram feed: a dating boot camp with one of the “top matchmakers in the nation” co-hosted by Iowa farmer and former Bachelor Chris Soules.

  Mind you, this was a couple of months before Soules was involved in a tragic accident in April 2017. While driving his pickup truck near his home in Iowa, he rear-ended a tractor trailer and the person in the trailer—one of his neighbors—was killed. When the 911 call was eventually released, it became apparent that Soules had stayed at the scene until emergency vehicles arrived—but he then fled to his home, where he was later arrested. His trial was set to begin in January 2018.

  Since, Soules has all but vanished from social media. But back in March 2017, he was busy promoting this dating boot camp on his Instagram. And it didn’t take long for the trolls to emerge. Was the former Bachelor—whose 2015 engagement to Whitney Bischoff ended just six months after he put a 4-carat diamond on her finger—really qualified to be offering romance tips?

  “No disrespect,” Instagram user @kaciereed commented below Soules’s advertisement, “but obviously you are still single and were not able to make it work with 25 or 30 or however many girls it was . . . you are not giving dating advice at this thing, right?”

  “Do you have to be married to help others find soul mates?” Soules responded to the commenter. “Last time I checked Chris Harrison is even single. . . .”

  Clearly, tensions were already running high. And this dating boot camp, to be held at a country club in suburban Maryland, was unique. But was it worth flying across the country for? I decided to check out the matchmaker’s website before making a final decision.

  The event was being put on by Susan Trombetti, whose company Exclusive Matchmaking will revamp your online dating profile, give you a makeover, and even perform a background check on your potential suitor. For $2,000, she’ll spend half a day with you—plus lunch!—to give you a full “dating analysis.”

  Fortunately, the cheapest ticket at the dating boot camp with Soules was an affordable $89. (Actually, it eventually got knocked down to $35—a ticket sans lunch—but that option was unavailable when I bought my pass.) There were more expensive packages, for those so inclined. For $550, you’d get a picture with Soules, forty-five minutes alone with Trombetti, and a group wingman session. For $3,000, you’d get all that plus a makeover and many more hours of Trombetti’s coveted guidance.

  It felt like the $89 ticket was the right move. But what would I get for my $89?

  “When you think about the qualities you want in a man, does someone like Chris Soules factor in?” the boot-camp invite asked. “Do you want a man who is intelligent, successful, devoted to his family, beloved by his friends, funny, sensitive, athletic, hardworking, playful . . . shall I go on?

  “Chris is all of this and more, and we get the exclusive opportunity to ask him what he’s looking for from a woman. The Bachelor didn’t share ALL of his secrets on TV. He’s bringing a few special insights to my exclusive boot camp to help you understand what a successful man REALLY wants from a woman. Don’t you want to know?”

  I did want to know! Also, I may or may not have had a soft spot for Soules, and may or may not have harbored a secret fantasy in which we lived on his farm and I worked on a memoir about living on a farm and he tended to the corn on that farm. Whatever, guys. I’m not totally immune to the power of The Bachelor. Sue me.

  After I informed my Bach Discush crew about my impending weekend adventure, I was able to rope one of my friends, Molly, into coming along for the journey. I knew she would be the perfect partner in crime. She’s a hilarious writer and podcaster who co-founded the website HelloGiggles, and she’s always down for anything out-there.

  So with Molls’s ten-year-old Chihuahua, Wags, in tow—she won’t travel anywhere without him—we departed for Baltimore. We landed at ten p.m. on Friday and the learning began at nine thirty a.m. on Saturday, so we went straight to bed to assure we’d be in the right state of mind for the boot camp.

  As soon as we woke up, Molls ran her outfit by me. She’d decided to go with her Tory Burch “lemonade” sweater—a bold teal number with a small lemon emblazoned on the right breast. I selected a Pendleton cape, bell bottoms, and clogs, because I like to pretend I’m the daughter Stevie Nicks never had.

  I wouldn’t say the looks were subtle, per se, so when we walked in twenty minutes late to the boot camp, all eyes were on us. There were about fifteen ladies in attendance, ranging in age from roughly twenty-five to fifty-five. The average age looked to be thirty-nine.

  The event was being held in a country club conference room that overlooked a golf course. Each small
table was decorated with a bottle of fake tulips that had been glued to the tablecloth. There was a metal water bottle at every chair accompanied by a bottle opener; both read EXCLUSIVE MATCHMAKING.

  Soules was nowhere to be found. Instead, Trombetti stood at the front of the room, running through a PowerPoint presentation. A plump blonde in her early fifties, she was wearing a clingy blue dress and looked like she’d gotten her hair and makeup professionally done. She gave me a Paula Deen vibe, even dropping into a Southern accent every few minutes despite the fact that she’d ostensibly lived in Maryland her entire life.

  We were here, she said, to create a dating action plan. We would make a list of the nonnegotiables we were looking for in a man—but this couldn’t contain anything superficial. Height, weight, education, career—none of those could go on the list.

  “You’ve paid me for the truth,” she said. “Your friends, they don’t tell you the truth. And listen, it’s hard for me to hurt people’s feelings.”

  As hard as it was for her, she said, she would tell us if we had too much weight on us. She would tell us if we were being bitchy. She would tell us if we slept with guys too soon—or if we made them wait too long for sex.

  “I’m sorry if you’re religious, but you’ve gotta have sex,” she insisted. “Stop denying that you want sex as much as he does. I’m telling you, there’s a problem if you’re not gonna have sex.”

  Good thing I have no religious convictions, I guess?

  She then launched into a speech about how to tell if a man isn’t the committal type. Is he always late for dates? Does he fail to call you when he says he will? Does he miss your birthday or dinner with your family? These are the kind of men who are telling you, point-blank, that they are not ready for commitment. And we need to be listening to them.