That Time I Tried Out For THE BACHELOR

That time I tried out for The Bachelor.

In celebration of The Bachelor season in full swing, I thought it would be a perfect time to share my Bachelor audition story.

The Bachelor is a TV Show where one hot single person goes on TV to date 25 other hot people, eventually narrowing it down to potentially marry one of them.  It’s wonderful.

So here we go.

A couple years back I decided to audition for The Bachelor was a good idea.  I had little dating fear at this point in my life so I thought I could nail the opportunity.

The process was N A R L Y from the start.

I raced to the audition after work.  Changing into a cheap, bright yellow, jumper from Forever 21.  Entered the building to find girls prepped for the Miss America pageant.  Even after this, I felt pretty confident. Hoping the producers would realize I’m a working woman, I don’t have time to prep for the Miss America pageant. I can only go up from here.

Upon arriving, someone quickly asked me to step outside to have photo’s taken. I stood up straight, smiled, arms by my side, facing the camera and she snapped her picture. Then she said “You get two pictures… I’m going to take the second one if you want to do something else”.

Excuse me, what?

What does she mean do something else? Give a thumbs up? Flash the peace sign? Hold up a “PICK ME!” sign? She could see the confusion in my face and said, “Maybe you want to turn to the side?… Just-do-anything-else.”

So I turned to the side. Just a little. I don’t get it.

That was awkward but I prevailed.

Things took a fast turn after I filled out the 99-page application and was brought to a room through a skinny, dark hall filled with scary clown photos. I squeezed into a box sized room that was filled with production cameras + lights with velvet red colored walls. I was told to sit on a bench that all the equipment was facing. A women did some adjusting on the camera, without saying a word, and then came and sat near me. She squeezed into the corner, a little beside and behind where I was sitting. Absolutely no facial expressions or nonverbal clues.

I wanted to cry. Where the hell am I?

I needed to leave. I even started trying to speak words that summed “Please let me leave”.  Nothing but air came out.

This is a horror film. Or a porn set.  I didn’t want to participate in either.

Once she was seated, the questions started coming. “Have you ever been in love?”  “What does love mean to you?”  “Have you been heartbroken?” “What are you looking for in a man?” “How do you think this show can bring you love?”

Kill me. Kill me now.

I have no idea what I said. I was answering each question with 1, maximum 6 words, mostly in question form. (..Loooove?)

Even worse, later I realized I wasn’t supposed to be answering while my neck was turned backwards to the lady jammed in the corner. I was supposed to be looking I N T O the camera.

By a miracle of the film making Gods, I got through all the questions.

The women got up. I thought I was in the clear. Until she quietly mumbled me to stand up.

She took the huge ass filming camera and scanned my body. The overwhelming feeling of being in a porno was coming back to me.

She went up and down with the camera twice. I think I was probably supposed to be “posing”. Instead, I stood as if I was in a jail line up getting my photo taken to be booked.

Get me the F out of here.

After that, she opened the door. FINALLY! I ran out.

When I dreamt of the Bachelor audition I did not dream of a scary dark room with a television production set. I imagined a panel of people asking me questions, in a interview setting. I would smile and laugh and throw around my blonde locks making them fall in love with me. Wrong. Very wrong. And overly confident.

There are several reasons this is embarrassing:

– I signed up to find love on the bachelor?

– I failed miserably

– I’ve obviously never had my photo taken before

– I crack under pressure

– Can’t save myself when drowning

Looking back, I was an idiot. I should have known the types of questions they’d be asking. Also, duh Katie, it’s a TV show, of course, they’re going to have a camera!

BUT in my defense. The tiny room, in the skinny hallway, with the awkward interviewer, with zero instruction.. did not give me a fighting chance! After question 1 of me looking backwards, the woman could have given me a heads up. “Look into the camera dumbass”.

Took me years to tell this story, but I feel relieved to have it off my chest. Thank you for listening.

Xx MissBassmaster