“By the time you swear you're his, Shivering and sighing. And he vows his passion is, Infinite, undying. Lady make note of this -- One of you is lying.” ― Dorothy Parker

The Emperor Penguins in a courtship ritual  

Nature presents some remarkable courtship processes as individuals select a partner in order to reproduce. We have some marvelous spectacles such as an eloquent dance by flailing the bluest of feet (Blue-Footed Bobbies) to elephant seals battling violently over access to the females. How can we not enjoy the touching courtship of the emperor penguins we saw in The March of the Penguins.  In nature and in the human world , we often see  males work tirelessly to advertise their strength, overall health, and mating desirability.  

The Blue footed Boobies in their courtship dance 

The Boobies  close  the dance with a big finsih

Scientists have classified various models of sexual selection in the animal kingdom.The Good Gene model manifests itself when females tend to choose mates that display honest indicators of the male’s ability to pass on genes that will lead to greater future survival and reproductive success of her offspring. As for people, we know good genes when we see them. 

Wolves in courtship demonstrate  affection

Recall those nature shows in which the young female alligator watches the lads all fight each other for the right to mate .The young female waits for the winner to emerge and her selection is made. as Darwin directed nature has evolved by selecting the fittest to survive.

Generally it’s the males who compete for females but female to female competition also exists in the animal world. A fascinating example is the spotted hyena. The female spotted hyenas are larger and more muscular than the males, and they compete fiercely to be the alpha female. As the alpha female, they have the greatest access to mates and have more opportunities to produce offspring than the subordinate females. These alpha moms also seem to pass on their aggressiveness and physical stature to their pups through exposing their pups to hormones in the womb.

In The Bachelor where the females all compete for the single male, we are closer to the hyenas than the elephant seals or alligators.

A lot of competion for one guy 

We know The Bachelor has rituals of its own that we in Bachelor Nation expects these rituals to be observed. The hometown visit is one of these rituals.

Our boy Ari has reduced the field to a gang of four and we know he will visit each candidate in her hometown.  We also know the women at some point are supposed to declare their deep and abiding affection for our boy so we can know they are in it for love-even as they really are looking to be the next Bachelorette. Meanwhile the family is expected to give Ari a little hard time and then embrace his interest in the daughter prefaced by  a qualifier “if  my daughter is on board with you , I trust  her judgement  and  I am on board too. What can go wrong when we all have our scripts????

 

Ari and Kendall do some taxidermy

Up first is Kendall  in Los Angeles. We learn Kendall is a twin. Her twin sister is Kylie. Even I know there are other sisters in LA named Kylie and Kendall.  I find myself hoping the sisters pull a “Patty Duke “ ( you need to have some familiarity with the 60’s TV  to understand that reference)  and  dress alike and prepare their  hair the same  making it tough for Ari to figure which is Kendall. However, instead Kendall takes Ari to do some taxidermy in a room with hundreds of stuff animals. Kendall allows she got into this because she would find “things” on hikes and want to preserve them. I am thinking, “Where the hell is this chick hiking that she finds dead tigers and the like?” (After all, I watch this show with a cop’s daughter who is savvy about these interrogations) Ari  does not bother to follow this line of inquiry and plays along.  You might be interested to know that Aristotle was the first to collect animal specimens, the first to describe and record species, and the first to think those things were worth doing. He believed looking long and hard enough inside the bodies of birds, bees, fish etc. that nature would reveal its secrets. 

Eventually, Ari follows the producers’ direction and offers he is “falling for Kendall”. I have been on Team Kendall for a while but I am not feeling it.  Kylie, the twin, has her own session with Ari, which is about as long as Kendall has had with our boy all season. Twin Kylie weighs in that she “feels” something is missing and we agree with her. I think the missing something is that Ari is smitten with Lauren. He seems to be going thru the motions with the others. I hope that Kendall gets the Bachelorette gig though.

Kendall and her taxidermy house

 Next, we go to Wiener, Arkansas and meet Tia’s family

 Tia 

 Tia's Mom (pictured below) gives me the feeling she is a just stamp away from writing letters to Charles Manson. We are feeling Tia’s stock put in a high a couple weeks ago and has been fading ever since to new lows. The momentum players are trading Lauren’s stock as if it had Amazon’s prospects.

Tia's family having a weiner - that's Mom on the right

We head to Minnesota next to meet Becca and her family. Becca lost her dad a few years ago so we have a stand-in with Uncle Gary. As Becca takes Ari around an apple orchard in Minnesota,  I am thinking to myself that all I know about Minnesota is it is always cold there. They go ice fishing and there seem to be many lakes out there. Simultaneously ,I also realize, I have not seen one thing in the Winter Olympics that I could do. ( I thought I might possibly  "do” curling until I read one of the competitors was disqualified for failing PED drug tests so I guess I am not strong enough to even sweep the floor) . Thus, I imagine myself in Minnesota wondering  what I would possibly do there.

Becca and Ari

As I ponder my being cold in Minnesota, Uncle Gary takes Ari aside and remembers Becca’s dad in the most sincere way:

Uncle Gary : ( pointing to wooden dusks arranged around the room)“You see all these ducks? He carved every one of them. So, he was the best.”

Wait – the Uncle has a window to talk about Dad and the highest compliment he can offer is “he carved the ducks?”   Whoa – not only can I not I handle speed skating, downhill slalom, or half pipe triple flips or even the bobsled. Now I have to acknowledge another huge shortcoming –I cannot carve wooden ducks!  To be fair, they were really good-looking ducks.

Uncle Gary and Ari 

While absorbing this shattering blow to my ego I have a flash to a moment  where I have "gone on" and my brother in law serves as a stand in for me while the bachelor chats up one of my daughters:

Our Dog- waiting for a walk 

Uncle Jim (pointing at Summy our dog) : “You see that dog? He walked her all the time. He could use either hand to hold the leash. Man, he could even change hands on the leash mid-stride. (Wiping a tear)  He was the best.”

Bachelor (admiringly): “You don’t see skills like that very often”

Becca with her dog - I think I could walk that dog!

One thing I do know – a person from Scottsdale, Arizona (Ari’s hometown) is not moving to Minnesota (and neither am I).

Finally, we get to Lauren’s hometown and once again, we watch Ari really make the effort to impress.

 

Lauren 

Bachelor Nation can easily see Ari is “into” this chick . The producers however seem to show her quiet side and Ari has to do some heavy lifting to get the conversation flow going. Ari and bachelor nation has noticed she is beautiful and can go right from the Bachelor to doing commercials featuring her perfect complexion. In her defense, she surely  does fit the good gene theory with her glowing complexion.

Lauren seems to hold top seed

Eventually we get to the rose ceremony and our boy stalls before eliminating one and asks to speak with Kendall alone. Alone, Ari is practically torturing Kendall for answers on how she feels about him. He asks, “Can you get there? Do you want to marry me?” and Kendall responds with, “Uhhh we’ll see won’t we?”   She is much more engaging than Lauren or Becca but he seems not to notice.  She is handling this like a mature adult, which makes me feel she is doomed.    

    

Ari finally eliminates Tia who was living on borrowed time anyway. Tia has a future though and a lively personality but she made a classic blunder last week and paid for it tonight.

Darwin would be proud to see a reality show constructed to illustrate his theory of natural selection to Bachelor Nation. There may be a winner but there sure is a lot of doubt about the staying power of these relationships.