Top 5 Love Lessons from The Bachelor (Juan Pablo, Ep 6)
screenshot from ABC’s The Bachelor
- Everyone has their patented move (e.g. gently curling your date’s hair behind their ear). Just make sure your move doesn’t become an automatic, robotic gesture when a) you’ve run out of things to say, b) you’re not interested in the words coming out of your date’s mouth, and/or c) you’ve taken a paternalistic view of your dates and are treating them like children whose hairdos — indeed whose whole beings! — need to be tamed.
- We said it once, we’ll say it again: If you’re going to explicitly lay down ground rules and set up boundaries about the way you date — which we are all for (yay, open and honest communication!) — then you’ve got to follow and respect them consistently. Don’t break the rules when it’s convenient for you. For example: there is NO moral difference (at least from where we’re watching) between getting all hot and heavy in your bathing suits in the ocean and getting all hot and heavy in your bathing suits in a waterfall. Same diff.
- If you’re going to dump someone, do it before a major event, like a holiday (Xmas, New Year’s, Valentine’s Day) or a 22nd birthday. Don’t wait until right after, and certainly don’t do it on the day of!
- Using the sad story of your abandonment issues (perhaps created by an alcoholic, absentee father, let’s say) as a thinly veiled plea for another date will always backfire.
- Don’t steal other people’s partners (or their column ideas: a week and a half after @BachelorTV liked our Tweet about one of our Top 5 Love Lesson columns, they penned their own 5 — count ’em, five! — tips gleaned from watching called “Love Advice from the Bachelor,” including our tip about being honest about your desires. Imitation may be the sincerest form of flattery, but payment would feel pretty good too).
