Bachelorette Recap: Where's My Happy Ending?

ABC promotional image - "The Bachelorette" Season 9

I've seen one too many chick flicks.

I realized this while watching the Bachelorette Finale this week (I know, it's a horrible show and I still don't quite like acknowledging I watch!). While I actually found the finale somewhat boring and unsatisfying, I did find one aspect of the ending interesting...

I WAS expecting Brooks to come back.

If you aren't a Bachelor fan, he was one of the top 3 contenders and evidently the front runner to "win" the chance to propose to the Bachelorette Desiree. Last week he stirred up all kinds of controversy, "with the most dramatic bachelorette season in history," when he chose to go home early. Like most realistic people, he felt he probably shouldn't propose to the Bachelorette after only a few weeks of dating (while being filmed and on exotic dates across the world) a girl who has multiple boyfriends (with whom she spent overnight dates with two other guys just days before) and still hasn't been able to express her real feelings. I admired him for being honest and leaving before milking the show for additional fame, exposure, free vacation time, or even physical affection or to avoid fear of feeling awkward or looking bad when dumping a beautiful woman on national television.

Evidently I wasn't the only one waiting for his return. They polled the studio audience and a huge number of women also made their vote clear by cheering loudly that they were expecting a comeback. Those of us on Team Brooks expected our fairy tale/chick flick ending with the long drawn out scenes of an unspecified man in a suit walking up as she waited nervously, only to see his face and crazy hair at the last minute with the huge diamond and a big apology for not only the Bachelorette but all of America (at least the women sending him death threats). Instead, we got to watch Des cry and figure out plan B. (Somehow I have a hard time feeling too bad for her when she just dumped 20+ guys in a similar fashion over the past few weeks, including Zak, the guy who bought her an engagement ring after their first or second date.)

I realized when he didn't come back that because I was watching something on TV, I assumed the happy and dramatic ending I was expecting would come to be. But in real life (if you can call "reality TV" real), you don't always get the man running through the airport to stop you. Or coming back with a Neal Lane diamond and proposing on TV. 

Instead, sometimes he is too smart for that and you end up getting engaged to your second choice guy. 

And you know what, you probably be pretty happy in the end, even without the sigh worthy ending. (--and that's taking into account the fact that you likely wont marry him anyway, just like almost every other couple from the show's history.)

Because that's real life.


*And P.S. Am I the only woman in America not gaga for Juan Pablo?*