Friendship Reboot
After she moved across the country, dissecting the shows chaos kept us close.
My indoctrination into Bachelor Nation took place on a Monday night in 2016 at my friend Kelseys apartment.
On-screen, everyone talked a lot about their journeys.
By the end of the night, I was hooked.
Conversations would get cut short, forgotten by the next commercial break.
Kelsey and I had met years earlier as magazine interns and quickly became close friends.
Our weekly ritual cemented our places in each others inner circles.
Wed meet after work at her place.
We could be barefoot.
Shed lend me sweatpants and wed eat straight out of plastic tubs.
Id braid her hair, and sometimes, I brought bouquets of bodega roses.
It was a kind of intimacy that reminded me of living with roommates in college.
Three years went by like this.
Then, over dinner at our favorite Italian place, Kelsey broke the news.
She was moving to San Francisco; her boyfriend had gotten a job there.
As happy as I was for her, I was sad for us, too.
Kelsey moved that September.
The drama was a tiny reprieve from our rapidly escalating grim new reality.
There was heavier stuff, too.
The franchise has an abysmal track record for casting a diverse group of contestants.
(She won his season anyway, and minus a brief break, theyve been dating since 2021.)
I spent most of Clayton Echards season playing Tetris.
Its not all bad, though.
I coveted Lawsons glam wardrobe (all those sequined pants!).
Its not much, but thats fine years of daily discussions have brought us closer than ever.
Our thoughts on the bach?
Wed probably talk about it all anyway, somehow, at some point.
But would we have this same constant stream of connection?
Our lives have changed again and again.
The contestants were once older than us, and now, theyre younger.
Kelsey has a full-sized fridge now, and a wine fridge, too.
But once or twice a year, we save a few episodes to watch together during visits.
Ill braid her hair and well roll our eyes at the cheesy drama.
Well chat during commercials, and if the conversation spills out into the actual episode, so be it.
