LETTER TO THE BACHELORETTE

Reality dating: Letter to the Bachelorette

by Sarah Hampson, http://www.theglobeandmail.com/life/reality-dating-letter-to-the-bachelorette/article1212748/

Dear Jillian Harris: You want to make your own choice, I know. Like all of us, you crave control of your romantic future. But I say you should pick Ed. Or Reid.

Oh, Jilly Bean, Jilly Bean.

If there had been a bachelor with bad acne, you would have probably given him a rose, just because you want to give everyone a chance to feel valued. You're so inclusive At times you are a one-woman agency for the romantically marginalized You give emotional grants. Very Canadian.

How else to explain your reasons for choosing that dweeby dude, Mark, back in the home-town Vancouver episode of The Bachelorette after the two-on-one date with him and Mike of the Slick Words and Hair? Just because Mark couldn't get a word in edgewise and later admitted to being a bit shy? Poor Mike looked completely dumbfounded as he was sent back to sea level in the Grouse Mountain gondola.

And generosity toward the maligned can be the only reason for keeping Wild, Wicked Wes, the self-promoting Texan singer, until last Monday night. You wanted to believe in the snake after everyone else had seen his poison – including Jake, he of the Laurel-and-Hardy grin and pilot's wings, who marched back into the show to tell you Wes had a girlfriend back home. (Frankly, Jake clipped his own wings by coming back. Before that, I thought you had made a mistake by getting rid of him. He really loves you He cares But, yeah, he is too earnest, too perfect. And that grin – whoa – it might be scary in the dark.)

But I digress before I even start. Which may be confounding, but it has its own logic – just like you, Jilly Bean. Aside from showing the world how Canadian gals can rock evening wear, you are disrobing the mystery of how women think – about marriage, about men, about relationships, about life.

In the past I have been a casual fan of The Bachelorette , but this year? I figure it's a version of a recession-friendly staycation, a welcome escape into distraction. Just camp out in front of the TV every Monday night with a G&T and escape into a landscape of modern love with a hottie who squeals like a dolphin, and hunks who turn into women over worries about their competitors.

Woo-hoo. It's a couchcation.

But back to you, the archetypal sweetheart with a heart of gold in a cliché world of high romance – exotic locations, champagne flutes, limousines, men in Clark Kent haircuts and no guy bling.

That you believe you can find true love in eight weeks of staged dating is commendable, even if your conviction might be part of the contract with ABC. Your focus is as laser-sharp as that of a fashionista who is determined to find the right shoes at a sample sale. Your suitors are forced into the “relationship talk” all guys dread before they have even spent the night with you. You go, girl Grill 'em, make 'em squirm and smoke out the commitmentphobes.

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