ABC’s The Golden Bachelor wrapped up in November, the wedding is set for January 4, and I have feelings about it. If you haven’t heard of The Bachelor, it’s a show where one eligible bachelor or bachelorette dates up to 25 potential matches and eliminates them week by week until only one is left, culminating in an engagement. The show has been airing since 2002 for 28 seasons. The Golden Bachelor is the latest iteration, with the twist that the bachelor is a 72 year old man and the contestants are also in their 60s and 70s instead of the usual 20’s and 30’s age range. 

People have hailed The Golden Bachelor as boundaries breaking because of the way it portrays seniors as being desirable and desiring. I admit, I really enjoyed the Golden Bachelor even though I have not watched any of the other seasons. Gerry’s penchant for making each woman feel special was really heartwarming, and the relationships formed between the women made look it almost polyamorous. However, these positives do not stop The Golden Bachelor from being a fantasy that reinforces outdated harmful myths about dating and romance, from the perspective of this non-monogamist human. These are my reflections on the unspoken assumptions of The Golden Bachelor: 

Choose only one. When Gerry steps out of the limo on the first night, he says, “I’m going to meet the woman of my dreams, and I hope I recognize her.” Then as one gorgeous woman after another emerges out of the limo, it is obvious that there is no “one.” Even as he spends weeks trying to narrow them down, he still forms romantic connections with multiple women, all of whom he acknowledges he could spend the rest of his life with. He ends up saying “I love you” to all three of his final contestants and has a terrible time choosing between them. 

The main assumption of the show, of course, is that a successful romantic relationship is monogamous. But in real life, if you date multiple people at the same time, it’s likely that you’ll develop feelings for more than one person. All of them can be fulfilling relationships in different ways. Instead of playing pickleball with Ellen, dancing with Leslie, horseback riding with Faith, and picnicking with Theresa, Gerry is forced to choose. The fact that he does have to choose, and inflict heartbreak over and over again is what makes the show addictive. We relish the pain and drama of his rejections. We have to find out who is the last one standing. Their pain is our entertainment. 

Marriage is the end goal. The bachelor and all the contestants are there to find love, but love is not the goal. The assumption is that real love has to lead to marriage. No other outcomes are desirable or can even be imagined. Not continuing to date. Not living together, not even a friendship with those he claimed to love. Marriage is the only thing you are allowed to want. Gerry ends up choosing Theresa, but it isn’t clear whether they will live together and how they will reconcile other differences. Eight weeks is a very short time to get to know someone! But since it’s engagement or nothing, Gerry choses engagement. Real love is not a linear journey, and in today’s world, there are many choices for relationships besides marriage. Forcing the contestants towards one outcome is perhaps the reason why so many of those relationships end in breakup. 

Romance is escapism. On The Golden Bachelor, dating happens in a world divorced from reality. The Bachelor and his contestants are placed in isolation in a mansion in California for the entire duration of the courtship. Gerry and his potential partners go on these fabulous dates where they float in a hot air balloon, fly in a helicopter, or rappel down a waterfall in Costa Rica. Of course, this is for entertainment value, but the message is that romance is about escaping reality. They are not grocery shopping, cooking dinner at home, hanging out with their children, having a hard day at work, or being themselves in their own environment. When romance is defined as escapist experiences, it sends the message that every day life is not. It also becomes a class statement, that romance has to involve exquisite food, exotic locations, luxurious transport, beautiful clothes, and rarefied activities. Someone who is not able to provide these experiences is deemed not romantic or worthy of love. All this serves to make romance seem like an exclusive commodity instead of something that is accessible to all of us. 

Beauty is defined by conventional standards. The Golden Bachelor congratulates itself for being out of the box for having contestants who are not stereotypically beautiful people in their 20’s and 30’s. They are just stereotypically beautiful people in their 60’s and 70’s. Looking young is a part of being conventionally beautiful. Gerry, the golden bachelor, is 72 but looks like he could be in his 50’s. He is tall and lean and has a full head of golden hair that is fluffed up like a Ken doll’s. The ladies who are his potential partners are all tall, skinny, and with full heads of colored hair. We know that at 70, Theresa’s hair is not a dark shade of brown and Ellen’s hair is not a flaxen shade of blonde. For each rose ceremony and many dates they are dressed in beautiful sparkly gowns with six inch heels while Gerry is in a suit and bowtie. Just like how they normally dress, I guess. The message seems to be, “to be beautiful, don’t look like your normal self.” 

The ideal partner…has had only one partner in their life. When we first meet Gerry on The Golden Bachelor, he tells the story of marrying his high school sweetheart, being together for 45 years, and her dying suddenly after moving into their retirement home. Gerry says he hasn’t dated anyone since his wife, and that he only wants to fall in love one more time in his life. His total devotion to one person makes him so…endearing? However, the day before the series finale, the Hollywood Reporter published an expose that Gerry’s past is not as uncomplicated as he made it out to be. It turns out Gerry has dated other women since his wife died, including one woman who he lived with for two years. He was also described to be quite a player, even when his wife was alive. Why Gerry or the show’s producers felt it was necessary to hide this fact is an interesting question, as it’s not that scandalous for a widow to seek companionship after the death of their spouse. Does the idea of him having loved only one woman his whole life make him a romantic ideal? The woman that Gerry ends up choosing, Theresa, also married her high school sweetheart and has purportedly been with no one else. The runner up, Leslie, who has had two husbands and presumably many lovers, was cast aside at the last minute due to what was perceived as her lack of experience with life-time commitment. Like some Victorian morality tale, an experienced woman is “broken” and “soiled” and a woman with childlike innocence is held up as the ideal. It’s amazing how little things have changed despite it being 2023.

Even die hard fans of The Bachelor will admit that the show is enjoyable because it is a fantasy. Things are almost never that linear or glossy in real life. What does it mean that we still watch it and enjoy it? The percentage of people who are married today has never been lower, and alternatives such as cohabiting, being single, and non-monogamy all outnumber those in traditional heterosexual marriages. Perhaps the appeal is that the rules of romance create the drama on the show that might otherwise be alleviated by alternative choices, choices that have been eliminated by the show’s format. Or maybe we enjoy the idea of a linear, monogamous romance, where one person emerges as “the one.” Exclusivity is monogamy’s big draw, even as it limits what is possible. 

In the season finale of The Golden Bachelor, Gerry is seen getting ready the morning he prepares to propose to Theresa. There is a sad and somber look on his face as he puts on his suit and tie, the polar opposite of his look when we first encounter him, full of excitement and anticipation as he gets ready to meet the 22 women he will date on the show. “I’ve found the one I can’t live without,” he says. But that realization doesn’t seem to bring him as much joy as when multiple possibilities were open to him. “If I had known how much heartbreak I would cause I would have never taken the first step on this journey,” he said to Leslie in the finale. The sense of loss and regret is palpable as he awards the ultimate prize to only one woman.