In a stunning shift that fans of the reality series could never have predicted, the producers of season 20 of The Bachelorette elected to focus less on the eponymous eligible lady, Charity Lawson, and instead turn their attention to one of her suitors. This year – and maybe every year from this point forward, in ubiquity and perpetuity – is all about Brayden from The Bachelorette.
And I’ll tell you what else: Good. It’s good that we’re focused on Brayden from The Bachelorette. He’s got the “it” factor. He’s got the “wow” factor. He’s got, intermittently, a shirt. He’s a man that makes you think “What if instead of turning into Superman, Clark Kent just drank White Claws and got a bad yeast infection?” Anyone would be lucky to get to spend time with a guy like that. I’ll take it a step further – If you love somebody, you should want Brayden from The Bachelorette for them. I’ll take it a step further than that:
I hope my wife, Linda, who made me a father and a better man, leaves me so that she can marry him.
And by “him” I mean Brayden from The Bachelorette.
And here are 10 reasons why.
10: Brayden from The Bachelorette seems like he could do 30 push ups
I doubt most people will forget the first time that they laid eyes on Brayden from The Bachelorette. I know I won’t. Watching that opening sequence and his introduction to Charity, a bucket of kettle corn in my lap, I took a sip of my Boodle’s Gin and Diet Squirt (recipe at the end of the article) and got hit by a thought like a diesel train: “That’s a guy who can do about 30 push ups.”
Now, me? To put it lightly, I’ve never been much of a gym rat, and Linda knew that when she married me. The form for the VHS dating service where we met asked me to fill in my body type and I wrote “Honey Baked Ham.” Linda told me later that that made her laugh and got her attention in a way that none of the other VHS guys did. And even though she’s always insisted that she doesn’t care about outside appearances, it’s hard not to feel self conscious. I want the best for my wife, and it doesn’t get much better than being able to do 30 push ups, the way Brayden from The Bachelorette probably can.
9: Brayden from The Bachelorette isn’t a quitter
Like the majority of viewers, my jaw hit the floor when Brayden from The Bachelorette crashed Charity’s cocktail party. After threatening to leave the show twice and leaving the show once, he made the bold choice to not leave the show before ultimately leaving the show. If teasers for the rest of the season are to be believed, he hasn’t actually left the show.
Where I come from, we call that “persistence.” That’s a man without an ounce of quit in him, just a piping-hot half-gallon of threaten-to-quit.
Me, on the other hand? All I do is quit. There’s a jigsaw puzzle of a hot air balloon in the living room that’s been a third of the way done since before Ted Lasso got bad. I left my last job because of their closed-toe shoe policy. Linda, God bless her, she never complains – “You’ll find a Birkenstock-friendly construction job one day,” she told me, “and they’ll be lucky to have you.” Still, I can’t help but feel like she suffers in silence, and I don’t want that for her. I want her to have the go-getter she deserves: Brayden from The Bachelorette.
8: My wife deserves more earrings
Now, my wife Linda is a beautiful woman, and gift-giving is my love language. I have given that perfect angel a treasure trove of earrings over the years. Dozens, maybe hundreds of pairs. I could never get her enough, not if I had the rest of my life. She deserves more.
And here’s what’s frustrating about that: If Brayden from The Bachelorette started giving Linda some earrings tomorrow, he might never catch up to the amount that I’ve given her by number.
But by volume? Brayden from The Bachelorette could give Linda more earrings by volume than I ever could with like, one earring. It’s not my fault that I don’t know anyone that makes jewelry out of pieces of seagull or found construction equipment, I don’t go on Etsy or patronize farmers markets in the American Southwest. Brayden from The Bachelorette, on the other hand, apparently has connections, and I‘m sick of him mocking me from the other side of the TV screen. I get it, man. You could give Linda more earrings by surface area than I ever could. You win again.
7: My wife loves beets
I’m allergic to beets. Brayden from The Bachelorette bites into them like they’re dirt-flavored caramel apples. Another point for him, whoop-dee-doo.
I shouldn’t be upset. The thing is, early in our courtship, Linda and I went to this local beet festival that our hometown puts on every year. She was so excited, I didn’t have the heart to tell her about my condition. I made it about ten minutes before being surrounded by those little purple devils sent me into anaphylaxis. We didn’t get to bob for beets or pin the tail on any beets. I had to be wheeled out on a stretcher. Linda played it off like it was no big deal, but it’s been years since she’s gotten to celebrate the beet harvest on the arm of her best guy, surrounded by her community like in a Norman Rockwell painting. Brayden from The Bachelorette could give that to her. He could give her so much that I can’t.
6: My wife deserves a man who takes his shirt off for no reason on a cold day in the Pacific Northwest
The last time I took my shirt off in public, I was riding high. At the top of the fourth inning, Ken Griffey Jr. had just hit his 50th home run of the 1997 season, and even though I went to the Hubert H. Humphrey Metrodome that day to wave the Homer Hanky for my boys from T.C. – go Twins – I couldn’t help but get caught up in the excitement of the accomplishment I’d just witnessed. I confess that I’d snuck a few Boodle’s gin and Diet Squirts into the ballpark, and I let myself get carried away. When I saw myself, shirtless and screaming, on ESPN the next day, I knew it was time to start buttoning things down a little.
Brayden from The Bachelorette doesn’t need an excuse to take his shirt off. He doesn’t let the embarrassment of having been seen topless on network television stop him, nor the debilitating cold of a day spent on the banks of the Pacific Northwest’s mighty Columbia River. He doesn’t stop to think about how his behavior could affect his family. He just rips his shirt off and says what’s on his mind. Me, I’m a worrier. Brayden from The Bachelorette is a doer.
Linda deserves a doer.
5: Brayden from The Bachelorette seems like he’d be better at reading than me
This might be me projecting, though. Brayden from The Bachelorette has super trendy glasses, and I’ve been pretty stubborn about not getting my prescription updated for a while. It drives Linda crazy.
4: My wife deserves a guy who seems like he would ruin the birthday party of a kid he doesn’t know by climbing into the ball pit at McDonalds and shouting “I’m the king of the ball pit!” and at first it’s a joke, but things spiral and after a few minutes he’s full-on rage screaming at an eight-year-old
If you close your eyes and picture the kind of guy that would go to a McDonald’s, see a child’s birthday party in the play area, join as a joke, and then get into a drawn out, possibly physical fight with one of the children over who’s “the best at going on slides,” you’ll probably be imagining Brayden from The Bachelorette without even meaning to.
That’s the kind of unpredictability that Linda’s been missing from her life ever since she married me. I’m a boring guy. Our lives are pretty stable, aside from my long stretches of unemployment when I utilize passive resistance to combat draconian footwear policies. When I watch my wife Linda belting out encouragement at our kids’ indoor soccer matches or berating a teacher for not keeping our son Michael engaged, I know that deep in her chest beats the heart of a warrior woman. She should have a man that will turn every day into an adventure, no matter how many children he has to make cry to do it.
3: My wife deserves a guy who can monopolize a camera crew’s attention in a room with a backflipping professional wrestler in it
At a guess, I’d say that 90% of guys would walk into a room with a professional wrestler in it and cede the rest of their time. Add the fact that the guy can do backflips, and almost everyone I know would call it a day.
Brayden from The Bachelorette walked into a room with a backflipping pro wrestler and he made the next three weeks all about himself anyway. That’s more than confidence. That’s the sort of behavior that you only see in a man who knows that he’s the main character. Brayden from The Bachelorette walks through life with the self esteem of the universe’s own protagonist. I, on the other hand, broke my toe when I caught my Birkenstock on the doorframe of the paint-and-sip place where we did Linda’s 40th birthday party.
2: I think I got married too young
The Bachelorette, like any media, is a lens through which we observe reality. If I’ve taken any measure of truth from its teachings, it’s that marriage – whether condensed into a gameshow format and saturated in primetime colors, or found on a humble VHS tape provided by a mail-in matchmaker outside of Brainerd – is complicated. Maybe it’s too complicated.
Maybe life is supposed to be a never-ending series of “what ifs,” and the comfort found in the promise of ceaseless support and affection is illusory, even harmful. Permanence, or the concept thereof, is the enemy of adaptability, and closing the door on possibility is needlessly limiting. We were meant to be free, to wander every path, to smell the sweet scent of every blossoming flower on the side of the road to what might be.
I’m thinking about asking Linda for a trial separation.
1: Brayden from The Bachelorette seems like he’s probably taller than me
This one’s not a big deal, but sometimes Linda will ask me to reach something on a high shelf at Costco and I just can’t. Brayden from The Bachelorette probably could, though. Brayden from The Bachelorette is so cool.
Oh also, before I forget: A Boodle’s Gin and Diet Squirt is easier than it sounds. It’s just equal parts Boodle’s and Diet Squirt on ice in a Fast 7 promotional cup that I got from an AMC.