Episode 2, The Guy

Well, this is the episode that made me officially fall out of love with Sean. This is not to say that I was ever really in love with Sean per se, but I, like probably a lot of people, often find myself watching the show as if I was actually on it, trying to pinpoint the exact moment at which I'd send myself home. This fictionalized version of myself, by the way, besides being a size zero and the owner of many sparkly gowns, is all-knowing, all-seeing, and unfailingly rational (she also just can't understand why she hasn't found love but suspects it might have something to do with the cost-benefit analysis she runs during each rose ceremony. Men just hate dead weight loss!).

For rational, hungry me that point came, not as Sean was casually pumping iron to launch the episode (Oh, hi there, camera.  I couldn't see you over my muscles); or as Sean told girl after girl that he "Loved that about her" or "Could see her as his wife" (it was no Ben making out with every girl he sent home, but he's gotta know that those poor girls are over analyzing every word out of his mouth); it was actually when he said he'd protect poor, zipline-deprived Sarah.

When he told Sarah he'd protect her, it was just one statement in an ongoing pattern of saying seemingly nice things with more than a slight undertone of misogyny. It wasn't nearly as bad as poor Sarah's own father telling his disabled daughter that she needed a "strong man" to "handle" the deprivations of her disability, but it was still somewhat less than empowering.  He continued this trend when he "allowed" Katie to go, explaining that he really meant it when he said it was a "two-way street." (What if you didn't really mean it, Sean?  Is there a secret dungeon in the Bachelor mansion?) And pushed it even further when he sent Diana packing, telling her it was "wrong to keep her away from her girls," as if that was a decision she'd been waiting for him to make. The poor producers must have to keep a bevy of sports coats off screen, just so he could rescue every foresight-lacking girl who didn't think to bring a jacket.

It's not so much that I'm anti manly men, or that I don't like to feel protected once and awhile.  But one can't help but feel that the type of man Sean is has an awful lot to do with the type of woman he's looking for. And while fictional me may be birdlike and shiny, she's not the kind of girl who wants to spend a first date pretending she's a good sport, just to earn the chance to maybe someday stand by the asinine pranks of her man.