Kaity should have left Zach at that beach
This was the first year I decided to truly commit to The Bachelor. While I love reality TV, I never dedicate the time to sit and watch an hour and a half episode every week. But this year, I decided it would be my version of self-care and I don’t regret it one bit. By the end of the season (or really the first episode), I found two things to be true: I loved all the women, and I did not like Zach.
I found all the women in Zach’s season to be fun, the perfect amount of dramatic and all really genuine (at least on television). While I liked most of them, my top girls were Gabi, Jess, Brooklyn and Ariel. Obviously, none of them won, but I found they all made the show. I thought Gabi was sweet from the beginning. She didn’t create unnecessary drama and she always had personality. Jess spoke to my anxious girl’s heart, reminding me a lot of myself. Brooklyn made me laugh with her (slightly) insane attitude and snarky remarks (if the shoe fits, lace that B* up!). Ariel was way too cool to be on this show, but her calm demeanor made her so confident and unbothered. While these girls were my favorites, I don’t think they should’ve ended up with Zach. Not because they’re not good enough, but because Zach has the personality of a piece of stale bread and the ego of a frat boy who just got laid.
Zach gave the audience pretty much… nothing. He rarely showed his personality, and all he could manage to do was make out with everyone. The first major red flag for me was his conversation with Greer where he essentially told her she was selfish for caring about her job. That remark made my jaw drop. He took what Greer meant to be an empathetic, relatable story and turned it into an awkward, unnecessary bash at her character. From that moment on, I knew I was not going to like Zach.
Let’s flash forward to the Fantasy Suites (aka the worst thing ever). Like Ariel said later on in her interview with Jesse, by making it not about sex, Zach managed to make it all about sex. Why was it necessary to talk about it with anyone outside of the suite? Why didn’t he just not have sex with them? The public conversations he had made everyone feel awkward and put such a damper on what is supposed to be a fun time for them to connect. I don’t think anyone, including Zach, should have sex if they didn’t want to. However, the way he made the announcement was such a bad move. While his “declaration” was awful in general, what he did to Gabi takes the cake for his worst moment. As sad as I was that Gabi was heartbroken by not winning, she deserves someone so much better than Zach.
By telling Kaity (and the whole world) that he and Gabi had sex, he violated her trust. There was really no reason that information needed to be shared in the manner it was. All it did was make Gabi feel uncomfortable and hurt Kaity. It actually broke my heart to watch Gabi cry as she felt like a mistake to him. Sex is vulnerable and Zach treated that moment as if it, and Gabi, didn’t matter to him. He utterly failed Gabi, Kaity and Ariel. If it isn’t clear by now, I really don’t like Zach. I found him to be shallow, unkind and inconsiderate of the women in the end. I actually really liked Kaity, enough so that I wish she would have said no to his proposal.
I’m glad I watched this season of The Bachelor. It was entertaining, had great women and really interesting turns. However, all the women were far too good for Zach and he did not deserve any of them. I can’t wait to watch Charity take on being the bachelorette this summer as I know she will handle things with much more care than Zach did.