I’ve been wanting to write about The Bachelor for a while now, excuse me, The Bachelor: On the Wings of Love! You know, the reality TV show where one man tries to find his future wife from a batch of 25 commercially screened supermodels. Writing about The Bachelor, however, would require me to ADMIT that I watch the show and that I care enough about it to form commentary about its repetitive, achingly bad, cliche ridden, repetitive, simplistic themes. But then something crazy happened. Ali, pictured above, (who lives in my neighborhood!) was given an ultimatum: quit the show or quit her job. She picked her job, much to the chagrin of thousands of her Facebook fans, who said things like [sics all over this, btw]:

“Steel Jake back from the other women..”

“Ali u’re the perfect woman for Jakeeee!!! 😀 come back please, we love u ♥”

“I HEARD @USWEEKLYMAGAZINE, that you were comin’ BACK to THE BACHELOR?? hmm..is that TRUE?? THAST WOULD BE AWESOME!! 😉 PLEASE GIVE this another CHANCE!! ♥ . ..THERE ARE so MANY OTHER JOBS OUT THERE! I loved seein’ yOo in SAN FRAN; & your hometown!! Jakes♥ ‘s yOur company!!”

So, you see, in the wake of such an incredible tragedy, how could I NOT comment on this? (What’s that? Haiti who? Sorry, I don’t watch The Hills).

People on the internet are shocked that Ali would choose her career over TRUE LOVE. A love so pure and deep that only 15 out of 18 couples have broken up after the show wrapped. That’s an 83% failure rate. You’re almost better off going to a bar, blindfolding yourself, twirling around 10 times and then marrying whoever you’re pointing to at the end.

Of course, Ali’s decision to leave the show makes me love her even more, and not just because she uses words like “pragmatic,” although that IS part of her allure amidst the endless sea of Talking Skeletors with Boobs. I also don’t believe she left because her work made her do it. With all this publicity, she could get any advertising job she wanted and she probably wouldn’t even have to try very hard (unlike some people, who’ve been endlessly revamping cover letters and taking only the smallest of breaks to provide provocative insight on “reality” television, and then another tiny break questioning when we had to start writing reality with air quotes). But leaving the show for the mundane reason of she’s just not that into you makes for boring TV. Even more boring TV than it already is.

Which is why it’s not surprising that The Bachelor is full of theatrics – where girls face-plant on beds and sob promiscuously every time a camera is pointing at them, where Jake claims to have had his heart broken TWICE already on the show, and where the biggest scandal of the season involved a girl’s supposed unfaithfulness. Seriously. A contestant, Rozyln, was publicly slut shamed because she “had an inappropriate relationship” with the show’s producer. Poor Jake! I guess he’ll have to console himself with the 24 other women vying for his pocketbook, I mean, affections. As to what the inappropriate relationship was, Rozyln, that cheap hussy, said the inappropriate behavior was simply that the producer was a good friend. That’s what SHE said, Floozy McBigLove.

ABC’s got your back, Jake! They don’t allow cheaters on the show, unless the cheaters are men and the show is called The Bachelorette. That’s right, not one, but two of the douche canoes on the show supposedly had girlfriends. And this was discussed openly by the bros on the show. Were they given a stern talking to? Did they get lectured about “family values” or integrity? Did they get booted? Of course not.

Now, I’m just a pair of boobs with a blog, (ABC’s key demographic, I’m pretty sure) but that sure seems like a blatant double standard that further perpetuates ridiculous gender constructs and reiterates the virgin/whore dichotomy. Which, you know, not at all exemplify The Bachelor’s core values. I’m shocked, ABC. The next thing you’ll be telling me is that Vienna is not actually cross-eyed, but was digitally altered to appear so in order to infuriate people on Twitter.

Now that Ali’s gone, I have no one to root for, but that doesn’t mean I won’t enjoy watching the remaining three try to out-cry and out-bitch one another. After all, isn’t the thrill of such a show partly to bask in our own uppity satisfaction that “at least we aren’t THOSE people”?