The Bachelorette

I never skipped over an episode of The Bachelorette. Not once since I first started watching it with Lucie, my freshman year roommate.

It started off as a joke. Lucie suggested that we hate-watch The Bachelorette because neither of us were into reality TV. I figured that I might as well. I didn’t have anything particularly interesting going on that night, so collectively making fun of something would at least pass the time.

Lucie set up her laptop on her desk, and I dimmed the lights. We both wrapped ourselves in fluffy blankets so we could sit cozy in our plastic dorm chairs. We were ready to trash on a garbage show.

Then we watched the first episode of the newest season.

A “fitness guru” walked into the mansion wearing goat hoof shoes. A self-proclaimed “cannoli enthusiast” got into a furious verbal fight with a “construction consultant” who insisted on the health benefits of raw milk. The bachelorette herself donned a thousand-yard stare after one contestant got so “overwhelmed with emotions” after their first kiss that he immediately sent himself home.

Lucie and I had a stupid fun time that night. We laughed at the jokes, gasped at the drama, gawked at the audacity, and spent hours excitedly speculating about what would happen next. Neither of us had expected to like this show as much as we did. I know I wouldn’t have enjoyed it if I were watching it alone; I had an entire life of disinterest under my belt to prove it.

But watching The Bachelorette with Lucie felt different. It became our Monday night ritual for the next four years. We watched every series of The Bachelor franchise live. We would make popcorn in our dorm’s common room microwave, prepare fruity herbal teas, dress in PJs, and settle in for a night of being in each other’s presence. Even when we were overwhelmed with classes, exams, or other things going on in our personal lives, we would carve out the time to spend together. When we were no longer roommates, we didn’t let that stop us. We would cross campus so we could watch the next episode and fall asleep on the floor after talking into the early hours of the morning.

My irony gave way to sincerity, and I had never been happier.

Growing up, I never had a friend I enjoyed spending time with outside of school, much less had someone in my life I trusted enough to have sleepovers with. The bond I had developed with Lucie was something foreign and new and I did not want to let go.

However, with graduation on the horizon, cracks began to appear in our relationship. I got a job in North Carolina, and Lucie got a job in California.

We were ecstatic for each other, but I sensed something off with Lucie. Her smile in those last few weeks before we completed our bachelors degrees never quite reached her eyes. On one of our last nights together, while the bachelorette said a tearful goodbye to the runner up at the final rose ceremony, Lucie confessed her fears.

Lucie wasn't good at staying in touch with people once she couldn't see them in person. She hadn't talked to her friends from high school since she moved away for college. She suspected that our friendship would suffer the same fate.

I told her that would never happen. She was the first friend I truly cared about, and I was determined to make sure we stayed in touch. Our friendship wouldn’t suffer just because we would be on opposite sides of the country.

I sat her down and we did what we always did after watching The Bachelorette. We talked about what would happen next. We planned to continue our Monday night routine, adapting to the different time zones and distance by watching online. We even planned on booking trips to visit each other.

But this was all easier said than done. I can attribute some of the grand promises that I made to my own naiveté. I had no experience in maintaining friendships long distance, and I certainly had no experience with trying to stay friends with someone who was already starting to doubt the realness of our relationship.

Once we started our new, separate lives, schedule conflicts made their unwelcome appearance. We would work late, have get-togethers to attend, and were busy dealing with one crisis or another. We had new priorities that we were navigating separately and on different timelines. It was easier when we knew we would see each other in person on a regular basis, when we were only a stone’s throw away from one another. However, in this new phase of our lives, it became a little too easy to reschedule a video call over and over again.

I did what I could, always initiating calls and texts and even sending physical cards to remind Lucie of my existence. She reciprocated, but she was never the first one to contact me. Lucie always seemed to have something else going on, which was fair because I also had a busy schedule. But at some point I realized that I hadn't heard her voice in over half a year.

I missed her, so I kept pressing harder about scheduling a call. A return to our Bachelorette watching ways.

That's when we had a break through. Lucie finally found a Monday night when she would be free, and I canceled on a movie night that a coworker invited me to in order to make sure that I would have no schedule conflicts. Suddenly all of the struggle was worth it. I would get to see my friend again, even if it was just through a screen.

But then Lucie texted about an hour before we were set to watch the first episode of the latest season of The Bachelorette. She was so sorry that she forgot that she had her bimonthly trivia night at a local bar that evening, and could we watch the episode next week? Except, next week wasn’t going to work, because I had an event at work next Monday that I couldn't skip. It was a lot more important than a casual coworker movie night that I could miss out on.

I realized that the endless cycle of rescheduling was going to continue with no end in sight.

Summer was also long over. The latest season started airing over six months ago and it had long since finished its run. We still hadn’t even watched the first episode, and it was getting harder to avoid spoilers the more time passed.

We had delayed so much that we had fallen behind, fallen apart. Plus we hadn’t even been able to carve out enough time to discuss booking our flights to visit each other.

It was becoming so difficult, and I didn’t want to watch the newest season of The Bachelorette if Lucie wasn’t there with me. It just wasn’t the same if I wrapped myself in a blanket and watched the show on my laptop alone. I had no one to talk to about what will happen next.

So maybe, I should just abandon it altogether. Stop watching The Bachelorette. Never respond to Lucie's text, knowing that she wouldn't push.

Everything would be over.

The thought shocked me so much I had to sit down on the hardwood floor because it felt like my bedroom was swaying. I dropped my phone onto my lap and cradled my head in my hands in an attempt to still my vision.

The tears produced by my ugly sobbing tasted like failure. I grieved the friendship we once had.