Yes, I'm absolutely the actual worst this show is incredibly entertaining and fun as hell. Having spent three hours staring deep into the dark heart of American pop culture, I can tell you that the answer is complicated. I tuned back in last night at the behest of my editors as well as for myself, because I wanted to know: Was I right all those years ago to recuse myself, or was I just one of those feminist killjoys they like to talk about on Reddit? Was I being The Actual Worst? Or was The Bachelor truly as toxic as I remembered? And what it was seeing were the shittiest parts of me: my tendency to get really judgmental, the streak of socialized competitiveness and misogynistic criticism that feminism hadn't completely stamped out of me, my deepest fears about my real worth as a woman, my refusal to share my box of Kraft macaroni and cheese with my loved ones. I turned off The Bachelor (and its equally addictive but slightly less pernicious sibling, The Bachelorette) because I started getting this uneasy feeling in my stomach every time I watched it 'ironically,' like I had just swallowed a little bleach, but, like, I'd done it ironically, so why was I still vomiting up blood? To completely defang a Yakov Smirnoff joke: I started to feel like I wasn't watching The Bachelor anymore, but instead it was watching me.

I turned off the show for good after the second go-around for Brad Womack, whom I found uncomfortably tanned and suspected was some kind of low-key serial killer, the kind who doesn't get caught until decades after his death, when a burbling toddler pulls up an errant floorboard and discovers thousands of well-preserved skulls. In truth, until last night, I hadn't watched an episode of The Bachelor in years. I couldn't have predicted that JoJo's daring 'I'll-wear-a-romper-to-meet-your-parents' stunt would pay off. I didn't know about Ben, his self-perceived unlovability, his staggering genericness, and his valiant mission to turn 'respect' into a buzzword. The difference between me and my fellow rapt viewers, though, was that I hadn't watched a single episode of this entire season. Last night, like more than 9 million other humans, I tuned in to the season finale of The Bachelor.

The bachelor finale