Former Bachelorette star Rachel Lindsay will be blogging exclusively with Us Weekly each week about her opinion on Arie Luyendyk Jr.’s journey to find love on The Bachelor. Below is her final Bachelor blog.
The finale was an emotional rollercoaster with so many twists and turns. Where do we even begin? I guess there is no better place to start than from the beginning. I am going to do something a little different since the finale was longer than a cross-country trip. I am just going to tell you my thoughts and opinions about how it all went down between this indecisive man and the women that stole his heart … one before the proposal and one after. So sit back, relax, pull up a seat and get your popcorn ready.
Arie, Arie, Arie. Let me preface this entire blog by saying I like Arie but I do not like what he did and how he did it. I am speaking from the viewpoint of a woman and as a former lead of this show. I understand the process of the show the hard, time-sensitive decisions you have to make. I also understand that when it gets down to the end, emotions run high. What I do not understand is when you are so conflicted and so unsure of what to do yet you still get down on one knee and make one of the most important decisions of your life. This is a decision that not only impacts you but the one you choose.
One misconception about this show is that you have to get engaged and you are pressured to propose. That is not true. As the lead, you have the power to say, “no.” You have the power to say, “ I am not ready.” We have seen this before. Arie could have said no, and I think for Arie to make this “safe” decision was selfish. He did not take into account the ramifications of his decision. He did not consider Becca Kufrin or Lauren Burnham. He only considered himself. He seemed to be so conflicted that he might as well have flipped a coin on who to get engaged to; if it didn’t work out with one, then let’s go ahead and try the other one out. Oh wait, that’s pretty much what he did.
Why Pretend?
The day the cameras go off is the hardest day because you don’t know if the person you met on television is the same person in reality. You have to trust that you followed your heart and gut and pray that they did not fail you. I think Arie was caught between a place of what he should do and what he wanted to do. Arie was going through the motions but his heart was not in it. As the lead, you have to separate Bachelor world from the real world, which is very hard to do. You have to think about what works and makes sense in reality for you and not what makes sense for nine weeks. Many have tried and many have failed, and that is why most of these relationships do not work. Becca made the most sense but Arie’s heart was somewhere else and I truly feel like he always knew that.
From what I gather, Arie’s change of heart seemed to be pretty immediate. He admitted and was honest about having strong feelings for Lauren to Becca pretty soon into their engagement. His honesty did not make his actions any better or justify his indecisiveness. And the fact that he kept reminding Becca of his openness infuriated me; it was almost as if he was saying to her, “I told you this was a possibility.”
Another thing that upset me was that he continued to go through the motions of the engagement all while sliding in the DMs of Lauren. He was literally planning a future with Becca all while dreaming of that future with someone else. Personally, I think he had been dreaming of that future with Lauren for quite some time. By the time he called it off with Becca, there literally seemed to be no empathy from Arie … just words. It was cold, it was direct and matter of fact. If only he could have been this decisive on the day of the first proposal. While he was breaking it off with Becca, Arie’s face literally looked like, “I wonder what Lauren is doing right now.” It was the breakup heard around the world, and my heart broke into pieces for Becca.
But to be honest, the day Becca let Arie slide into Lauren’s DMs opened Pandora’s box. Kudos to Becca for trying to allow Arie to get the closure she thought he needed. But girl, this was an engagement. The fact that this grown ass man wanted to contact the other girl he was in love with is a HUGE problem. That was the beginning of the end. Sometimes we want something so bad that we ignore the writing on the wall.
Presenting to Lauren: the Red Flags
So they breakup and Arie goes back to Lauren. But let’s be honest, he has been back with her with via social media, texts, and calls for weeks now. Lauren, I understand that this is all very romantic and Notebook-esque that he came running back to you in a Jeep; but there are so many red flags waving on his road back to you that I am surprised he found his way back. So let’s break down the problems:
1. This man decided to spend the rest of his life with someone else when he had the option to chose you. He knew you and still said naw.
2. He initially contacted you behind his fiancée’s back.
3. He continued to plan a future with Becca while trying to build something with you. He literally had one girl and kept the other in his pocket until he knew what to do for sure. He was having his cake and eating it too. He was testing the waters. He was searching for the certainty he did not have when proposing the first time. Wake up call, you can never be 100 percent certain.
4. The flippant way he dismissed his engagement with Becca to you, but in reality was planning a future with her.
5. I think one, two, three and four are enough but Arie was full of too many excuses as to his actions. As they say, excuses are tools used by the incompetent to build monuments of nothingness.
It’s OK to Be Angry
This is not a Jason Mesnick situation as much as they tried to convince us of that. It was probably a good decision to keep Lauren away from watching the finale. These problems would have been all too much, too real and too evident for her to handle. Despite not agreeing with anything Arie did subsequent to the first proposal, I do hope he finds his happiness. They have to make this work.
In the end, I applaud Becca for being so gracious at After the Final Rose, but maybe she was just a little too polite. It is okay to be angry and upset — you were wronged and we would all understand that emotion.
But in the end, The Bachelor franchise did what it does best! It distracted us from the Arie debacle and gave us a happy ending with Becca. All is right again in Bachelor world and I really do hope Becca gets what she truly deserves. I hope and pray she is emotionally ready for her journey and can open herself up to trust a good man.
I have enjoyed recapping for you all this season. Thank you for allowing me to keep it real!
