Confession: I've watched every season of ABC's "The Bachelor," as well as its spin-off "The Bachelorette."
I'll pause for a moment so you can deride me as a voyeur and snicker at my poor taste in television shows.
Finished? Great. Because there's a point to this.
Last night, the latest season of "The Bachelor" premiered, with Ben Flajnik looking for a wife among 25 female contestants. For the uninitiated, that means Flajnik will spend the next few weeks taking these women on elaborate dates — think helicopter rides in exotic locales, private concerts and cliff-diving trips that usually end with someone having a terrified freak out. At the end of each episode, Flajnik will narrow down the pack at a cocktail party (open bar, of course) by distributing roses to the women he'd like to stay. The last woman standing gets the final rose and, usually, an engagement ring.
Because the women have a limited amount of time to catch Flajnik's attention, they often — okay, always — resort to ridiculous gimmicks, especially in the first episode, where the bachelor has to eliminate seven of the women just hours after meeting them.
Last night, one contestant blindfolded Flajnik, finger-fed him pieces of candy out of a wrinkled paper sack and made him guess what kind each was. Another — a law student — told Flajnik he was "guilty of being sexy." One rode in on a horse. And someone else brought her septuagenarian grandmother to demonstrate how into "family" she was — never mind that granny mostly looked annoyed and asked to leave halfway through.
