I have a superpower. It’s not fancy like flying or invisibility. I can predict the winner of the Bachelor/Bachelorette, well, my pick makes it at least as a second place winner. I’ve guessed correct winners before the first rose ceremony, even right after they come out of the limo… For those of you who don’t know about the Bachelor, it’s a television show on ABC where one guy, one very traditionally sizzling specimen of a man – with an unshaven beard and a cleft chin larger than my biceps – chooses someone he wants to marry out of 25 to 30 women. They go on a series of dates and, we, as the audience watch the cat-fighting and behind-the-back gossip, no doubt prodded by the producers. Hell, that’s the basic design of Reality-Entertainment anyway, throw people in a room and fuck with them. We’ve been doing this for centuries from the Colosseums in Roman times to Haunted Hay Rides. “Design me a way to fuck with them” seems to be the directive from above. This too, is so, with the Bachelor.

Part of my job and past job is to understand people. Understand exactly who they are, get in their heads. Figure out what they want and design it for them. Who are they really? Marketers call them customers, we call them users, psychologist calls them subjects. Ethnographers know that what a person says, and does, doesn’t necessarily define who they actually are. The actualization is in their core values and belief system. At the beginning of each episode they show a montage of the Bachelor’s current life, they’re passions, they’re lifestyle, who he’s looking for. This season’s lucky guy is Brad. Brad’s been on this show before but he’s a changed man from his days as a commitaphobe douchebag! He’s still wealthy, he’s still charming, but this time with psychoanalyzed self-esteem! When we last saw Brad, he’d dumped every single one of the ladies vying for his affection. All 25 of the single ladies. Wallowing in woe-is-me, why-am-I-still-alone-misery, he spent three years in therapy with a psychiatrist, (with a Ph.D even! as repeatedly pointed out in the show). This, is where things get tricky to predict the winner.

Psychiatrists might be good at helping you get over your past, but psychiatrists are bad for business. They make people less predictable, because they give the power of self-awareness. Marketers hire psychologists because they can make assumptions about a group based on experiments. Ethnographers are hired because they can analyze an entire culture. Psychiatrists on the other hand don’t just study people from the outside like psychologists and ethnographers, but they get in there and start rearranging the person’s mind. They’re like the Hunter S. Thompson of the soft sciences. These newly self-aware people are chaotic, they use ‘rationale’ and ‘reason’ to confront their issues. Businesses would rather sell sell sell to sheep sheep sheep. Not that the people I study are sheep, but it is inherently easier to understand a group of people who follow the rules, behave in a socialized normal manner, and are consistent in their actions. It’s easy to design for that. Someone who’s conflicted about who they are from this newly acquired ability to understand themselves, it’s like designing for a person with a split personality disorder. Who knows what you want? Jekyll or Hyde? The new you or the old you?

This season of the Bachelor is all fucked up for me now by that psychiatrist. He’s taken my super power away. Psychiatrists are my design Kryptonite. He’s planted seeds inside of Brad’s mind, as well as made him self aware of his actions. Brad, you were so easy to predict when you were just a self indulgent womanizer that decided with the smallest organ. Last time, you considered my Pick until the bitter end. She was the last person standing out of 25. She was the one! But you dumped her too, and now you’re back on the show with your new ability to psychoanalyze yourself thruoghout the show. After it doesn’t work for you this time though, the third time, when you are truly self-aware, that’s when I can predict the perfect person for you. That’s when I’ll know, that you’re actually just another closet gay Texan.

[If you’re ACTUALLY curious about the winner this time, I picked the Kansas girl as the winner (I don’t remember her name, Lisa? She had red shoes when she entered the house but had white shoes at the end of the show! How odd.). She didn’t even get any air time in the mansion though, and she wasn’t in the season’s previews at the end so I could very well be wrong:( My second place pick was Ashley S who didn’t care he used to be a douchbag and my third place pick was Emily, a sweet southern bell who will probably bail on the show because he’s not ready to take care of her kid. The show also got rid of showing the participant’s age. This is a huge deal. I don’t know the year they were born or their generation. I guess my other kryptonite is the “lack of data”.]